Confessions of the Head Girl
by Loves to dance
Summary: When James and Lily are chosen as Head Boy and Girl, she begins to see him in a different light. However, when Lily is pressured by her friends and reputation, she realizes that she and James can never be together... at least not in public.
1. Confessions of the Head Girl

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter or any of the other characters that are in the Harry Potter books. J. K. Rowling does, like everyone already know.

...

Her heart was racing as she collapsed onto her bed. Her head was spinning. She took deep breaths in and out, trying to steady her mind. She knew that she didn't have a lot of time; they would be arriving soon.

"Lily!" a girl with long, black hair shouted as she ran into the seventh year girls' dormitory at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Another girl who had long blonde hair was right behind her; both girls stared intently at Lily.

Lily Evans didn't say a word though. Instead, she continued to take deep breaths in and out. She tried to forget it all… she wanted to forget it all.

"Lily," the blonde said, trying a more compassionate approach.

Once again, Lily didn't say anything.

"Lily, what the heck is going on here?"

"This isn't like you…"

"How could you?"

"Are you okay?"

"Why?"

"I thought you hated him?"

"I thought you were my friend…"

"What were you thinking?"

"She wasn't thinking… especially not about me…."

"Why did you do it?"

"I trusted you…"

"How long has this been going on?"

"Why didn't you tell us?"

"Lily, just say something, anything."

She took one final deep breathe before sitting up from her four-poster bed. Lily Evans looked at her two best friends and said, "it wasn't supposed to happen. I didn't even want it to happen, it just did."

"Start from the beginning," the black-haired girl stated, a stern look on her face.

Lily sighed and so began the confessions of the Head Girl.


	2. How It All Began

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter or any of the other characters that are in the Harry Potter books. J. K. Rowling does, like everyone already know.

...

Lily Evans smiled as Albus Dumbledore said his final speech of the evening. It was the first day of her seventh year at Hogwarts and she knew it was going to be amazing. Along with her two best friends, Libby and Camilla, Lily took a seat at the Gryffindor table. Everyone was chatting animatedly about their summers and how glad everyone was to be back at school, home away from home.

She was in the middle of telling her Muggle vacation to Rome with her family to Camilla and Libby when she saw him. He was gorgeous; there was no other word to describe him. His dark hair had an off center part that framed his perfect bone structure and his eyes were blue like the ocean. Lily felt herself blush just thinking about him.

To her delight, he caught her eye and waved. Lily felt her heart skip a beat and she smiled and waved back. Both Camilla and Libby turned to see who had gathered Lily's fancy.

"Is that Alexander Leavitt?" Libby asked, her blue eyes sparkling.

Lily felt her blush deepen and answered, "He's adorable."

"He's coming over here," Camilla screeched, giving Lily an encouraging smile.

"Lily," Alexander said, a grin across his face.

"Hi," Lily said as she stood up from the Gryffindor table and stood to the side with him.

"I see you're Head Girl," he stated, nodding toward her shiny badge.

"Umm yes," she said, inwardly killing herself for being so awkward.

"Not really any surprise there though, is it?" he grinned.

"I guess not," Lily replied, not knowing what else to say. "And I see you're the new Hufflepuff Quidditch captain, congratulations."

"Thanks," he said. "Listen, I have to get going now, but maybe we can do something sometime."

"I'm sure that can be arranged," she answered, flashing him a smile.

Once she sat back down at the table her friends both gave her questioning eyes. However, Lily was unable to explain anything because just then the one person that Lily didn't want to see tapped her on the shoulder. She looked back to see James Potter standing proudly behind her. "What do you want Potter?"

"Just saying hello," James answered, running his hand through his messy jet-black hair.

"Well hello then," she said, rather annoyed that it was only the first day and she couldn't get any peace from him. James Potter was the one person that Lily truly despised. She found him arrogant, annoying, and a complete waste of space. During their fifth and sixth years he had asked her out at least a hundred times, but was shut down each instance. He also was the blame of ruining one of her best friendships at school and home; causing Severus Snape to call her a Mudblood during one of Potter's attempts to torture others. To top it all off, he had broken Camilla's heart at the end of their fourth year when she realized that he only dated her for six months to get closer to Lily. In Lily's mind, James Potter was no good.

He cleared his throat, forcing her to turn around and face him again.

"Can I help you with something?" she asked, an irritated tone in her voice, both Camilla and Libby were shooting him death stares from across the table.

"Just wanted to congratulate you on getting Head Girl," James said, glancing down at her chest. Lily wasn't sure if it was to acknowledge her badge or if he was looking at her chest, knowing James, she guessed the latter and decided to despise him even more because of it.

"Thanks," she answered as she rolled her eyes and turned back to her friends.

He cleared his throat once again and Lily cringed, wondering why he was still even there.

"What do you want?" she yelled, fully turning around and standing up. To any outsider, it would appear that she didn't have a chance against him. Lily was a mere five and half feet tall and the top of her head only reached his chin. She had to crank her head back to look him in the eye, a piercing stare that made her look unusually stern.

"Not going to congratulate me?" he asked, not showing any hint of nervousness.

"Quidditch captain again? Big surprise there Potter," she stated. "You made sure I knew it last year and seeing as you managed to win the Quidditch Cup, it would be kind of odd for the team to demote you."

"Not that," he replied, a smile forming at his lips. "But was that a shy hint of complementing my Quidditch skills? That's not like you Evans… feeling all right?"

She glared at him and said, "Not seeing you for three months always makes me cheery."

"That's the Lily Evans we all know and love," he said, amusement flashing through his hazel eyes.

Not wanting to bother with him for a moment longer, she rolled her eyes and cut to the chase, "Seriously, what do you want, Potter?"

"I'm Head Boy," he stated, his facial expression slowly forming a large smile.

"You're shitting me," she slowly said, her jaw dropping.

"No, Evans, I'm not shitting you," James replied, purposely mocking her choice in language. "And that whole jaw dropping look you've got going on really isn't flattering," he added as a side note.

Lily immediately snapped her jaw shut and looked at his chest. Sure enough there was a shiny Head Boy badge staring right at her. She couldn't believe her bad luck. Becoming Head Girl or Boy was supposed to be a Hogwarts honor and those selected students were supposed to be top of the class, follow and enforce school rules, and be role models for the younger students. She, of course, was an example of a student who followed all three of those set guidelines. James Potter, however, couldn't possibly fulfill all three. Lily knew that he was smart; he and his best friend, Sirius Black, were the only two students who received better marks than she did. However, James Potter and his little gang of friends had probably broken more rules in their first week of school than Lily had in her entire Hogwarts career. How could he possibly enforce the rules if he broke them on a daily basis? And as for a role mode, Lily simply did not see it. Sure, James Potter was the Gryffindor Quidditch captain and had been on the team since second year, but that didn't make him a role model, it made him a Quidditch player.

"How?" she finally asked.

"Beats me," he answered with a laugh and shrugged his shoulders. "But I am Head Boy and you're stuck with me."

This was just great. He was right, she was stuck with him. She was stuck with him for an entire year and couldn't do anything about it. What made matters even worse though was that he didn't even seem to care about being Head Boy. Lily had worried for months about whether she would be selected to what she had thought was a prestigious honor. Once she received her letter, her parents had even taken her out for a family celebration and bought her a beautiful pearl necklace. Lily was Muggle born, meaning that her parents knew very little about the wizarding world. Although they tried very hard to learn about her school, they still had no way of knowing the complexity of magic.

Lily's thoughts about how unfair this situation was were interrupted by James when he said, "Well, we'd better go talk to Dumbledore now, don't you think?"

"Right," she stated. She told Camilla and Libby that she would see them in their dormitory later and then followed James toward Dumbledore.

On the short walk past the bewildered and excited first years, Lily thought about it some more. Maybe it wouldn't be too bad. After all, did she really have to see James that often? Sure, they had all the same classes and were in the same house, but she managed to avoid him in the past. The only difference now was that she would need to meet with James and the Prefects in the Head's room every so often. Even then, at least the Prefects would be there too… she wouldn't have to be alone with him or anything.

He did bring a certain disgrace to the job, but at least her own personal lifestyle wouldn't be offset too much by his presence. In fact, the only time when she would have to be stuck alone with him was if they happened to pass each other's path during the nightly rounds of the castle. Maybe this wouldn't be too bad after all…

As Lily and James reached the Headmaster, he smiled and beckoned them to follow him to the Head's room. It wasn't far from the Great Hall, only up the stairs and down the corridor. He asked them both how they're summers were and informed them both that although he thoroughly enjoyed his vacation, nothing pleased him more than being here at Hogwarts.

Once they reached the room, Dumbledore shared the password with them, Gillyweed, and the three of them entered the room. It was a magnificent room, one that Lily proudly remembered from her two years as a prefect. James, however, who had never been a prefect, stared in awe at his surroundings. There was a large fireplace, which wasn't lit now because it was a warm day, but roared in the winter months. There were also black leather couches and plush chairs surrounding a large circular table. On the walls, the four house seals were hung proudly. There was also a large aquarium built into the far wall. It was amazing and the best part was that only the Head Boy and Girl, prefects, and Dumbledore knew the password.

"I would conjure up a nice pastry, but I'm assuming that the feast in the Great Hall was enough to fill you both up," Dumbledore pleasantly said, a twinkle in his eyes as he looked at his young Head Boy and Girl. "But now down to business so that you both can go off with your classmates soon.

"The duties that I expect from you two are slightly different this year from previous ones, but first let me refresh your memories of your responsibilities. I expect the two of you to set a good example for the rest of the school," Dumbledore continued, looked straight at James as he spoke. He continued to tell them both the usual routine—try not to break school rules, report anything serious to either him or another member of the staff, don't favor their own house, and that knocking off points from other houses for no apparent reason is forbidden. He then refreshed their memories on the Hogwarts rules, which on more than one occasion, James had a look of surprise on his face, as if certain rules were news to him.

"Finally, as I am sure you are both aware, Voldemort and his followers are on the rise, despite the fact that the Ministry is doing their best to keep it hidden. I do not think that any students are in danger here, but as an extra precaution, I don't want anyone wandering the halls alone at night. Of course, students are not permitted out of bed late at night, but as Head Boy and Girl, I do depend on you two to walk the castle before bed. In the past, students have done this alone to finish rounds more quickly. However, with the threat of Voldemort, I have decided that this would be unwise," Dumbledore informed them.

"So, no rounds?" James asked.

"No, Mr. Potter, I do still insist on rounds. However, I would like you and Miss Evans to do them together at night instead of separately. Of course, you may delegate these responsibilities to prefects a few times each week, just make sure that they understand not to walk alone in the corridors," Dumbledore concluded.

Lily couldn't believe her ears. She was going to have to do rounds with James Potter. Great, just great. There went her idea that she rarely had to see him. Now she was going to have to spend quality time with James Potter, alone, at least three times a week. And they had to monitor just about the entire castle. It would take hours to do, precious hours that she didn't want to spend with him. Could it get any worse?

Once they were dismissed, they hurried back to Gryffindor Tower. They made small talk the entire way back, despite the fact that all Lily wanted was to fall back about fifty steps and not have to walk with him. On the bright side of things though, rounds didn't start until tomorrow night.

Finally, they were back in the Gryffindor common room, which was filled with tons of students. Lily didn't say bye to James after climbing through the entrance, instead she set off toward Libby and Camilla, leaving James to stare after her.

"Prongs, over here," Peter Pettigrew, another one of James's friends yelled at him. This caught his attention, drifting his eyes away from Lily Evans and onto his three best friends, Sirius, Peter, and Remus Lupin. Combined, they referred to themselves as the Marauders, notorious for getting into trouble and sneaking around the castle.

"How's Head Boy stuff?" Sirius asked once James joined the three boys, a mocking tone in his voice.

"Shut up," James snapped. He would never admit this to Lily Evans, but once he got his letter, he had been convinced that Dumbledore had made a mistake and written the headmaster telling him so. Dumbledore had assured him though, that it was no mistake. He wanted James to be Head Boy. Part of James was excited about this; it meant that Dumbledore trusted him, it made his parents proud, and maybe it would even bring him closer to Lily. On the other side though, he was a little bit revolted with himself. He was supposed to be a trouble-maker, no regard for the rules. This would seriously tamper with his reputation.

"Not go well?" Remus asked, an amused look across his face.

"It was fine," James answered, but he wasn't looking Remus in the eye. Instead, his gaze went over his friend's shoulder, straight toward the Head Girl.

Remus, very aware of this, said, "I thought you were over her."

"I am," James snapped, darting his eyes away. The truth was that he had been in love with Lily Evans since fourth year. He found everything about her to be perfect; her sparkling green eyes, her shoulder length red hair, her petite form, her contagious laugh, her intelligence, her witty comments, her smile, and everything else. The problem was that she seemed to despise him.

He told his friends that it was just a crush and that he had realized it wasn't ever going to happen and had moved on, however, he knew that wasn't true. Lily Evans wasn't the type of girl that you could just move on from. And it wasn't just a crush. James did know that it wasn't ever going to happen though; after two years of flat out rejection, he knew that she would never feel the same way about him that he did about her. Granted, in the past he had always called out "Hey Evans, go out with me," which was always followed by a response similar to "I'd rather kiss the Giant Squid."

He had screwed up way too much in the past for her ever to consider him. Therefore, he had taken a new route in his conversations with her. Instead of asking her out, he was going to try and be friends with her. Sure, it wouldn't be dating, but at least hopefully she wouldn't hate him anymore. Now all he needed to do was convince her that he wasn't a complete ass and was worthy of the time of day.

Luckily for him, Dumbledore's new rule would give him ample time and opportunity to show Lily his better qualities.


	3. The First Night on Duty

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter or any of the other characters that are in the Harry Potter books. J. K. Rowling does, like everyone already know.

...

The next day, the Hogwarts students went to the Great Hall for breakfast, where their schedules for the year were waiting for them. Lily was pleased to see that she had Herbology and Charms with Hufflepuff, which meant that she would get to see Alexander again. However, to her disappointment, the Gryffindors had Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts with the Slytherins. Finally, Lily had Ancient Runes with the Ravenclaws.

The first class of the day was Charms, which was her favorite subject at school. Lily, along with Camilla and Libby finished their breakfast and headed down the long corridor to class. They each greeted Professor Flitwick and continued on toward their seats in the front left of the class.

Just as Lily was leaning over to gather her books from her bag, she heard, "Hey Lily, glad to see we've got class together again this year." She looked up to see Alexander standing there, a smile on his face.

"Yeah, so am I," she answered.

"Mind if I sit here?" he asked, indicated the free seat next to her.

"Not at all," she replied. She felt her heart skip a beat. She couldn't believe how lucky she was. Alexander was clearly a heartthrob and here he was, asking to sit next to her. She could tell that this was going to be a good day, no, not a good day, but a great day.

Even James Potter came into class and didn't even bother her. Last year at this time, he had sat directly behind her in class and took great joy in casually asking her out whenever Flitwick wasn't looking. Also, he used to pass her notes in class all the time. Lily stopped looking at them after the first ten notes appeared on her desk and instead reverted to using a handy charm that immediately ripped the paper into tiny pieces. At the end of last year, she had gathered all of the shredded paper and mailed it to James. She knew it was childish, but she was beyond caring what he thought of her.

Today was different though. Instead of sitting in the open seat behind her, James headed toward the opposite side of the room, an action that did not go unnoticed by Lily.

"Alright class, welcome to your seventh year at Hogwarts!" Flitwick exclaimed. "Now, seeing as this is your last year, I thought that it might be useful to ease into the school year with a charm that repels Muggles from seeing certain things. For example, the Ministry uses this charm for Wizards who chose to enter the building from the Muggle environment. Grab your wands and repeat after me, 'Repellium Muggletum.'"

The class followed Flitwick's every moves, however, no one correctly achieved the charms' effects on the first try.

"You'll know it's working when you see a twinkling light surrounding your matchbook for roughly thirty seconds. If the twinkling lasts longer than that, it's likely to go unnoticed by underage Wizards and Non-magical folks from Wizarding families," Flitwick informed them. "If the twinkling doesn't last long enough, it means that Muggles will easily be able to see the object."

After twenty minutes of practicing, Lily had successfully managed to perform the charm, which greatly delighted Flitwick, who awarded five points to Gryffindor. Not too long afterward, both James and Sirius successfully completed the charm. The rest of the class was still struggling though.

"Hey, Lily, what am I doing wrong?" Alexander asked. He had not even been able to conjure up a twinkling light that lasted even a second.

"Try it again and let me see," she answered, putting down her own wand and concentrating on Alexander's wand movement.

He flicked his wrist in a brash movement and in a deep voice, mumbled, "Repellium Muggletum."

Lily shook her head and said, "Stop. The reason why it's not working it because you're jerking your wand too much. Try giving it a lighter touch. And try to pronounce each letter in the charm."

Alexander did as she had instructed, which resulted in the twinkling lights to last ten seconds. He had improved, but had not yet achieved the charm.

"Guess I'm just not good at this kind of stuff," Alexander stated.

Anyone but Lily would have told him that was an understatement. Alexander was just barely passing his classes and if it wasn't for his amazing Quidditch skills, he probably wouldn't have lasted at Hogwarts for very long.

"No, no, you're doing better. It's just your wrist action that needs improvement," she kindly said.

"Show me again?" he asked.

She took her own wand in her hand and began to perform the charm, however, she was startled when she felt his hand cover hers. She immediately stopped what she was doing and stared at him.

"Muscle movement," he said, giving her a smile.

Lily smiled back and continued to move her hand and perform the charm. As she watched Alexander try the charm again, she came to the conclusion that "muscle movement" must have just been an excuse because he hadn't changed his wand positioning at all. She felt her stomach flutter for a minute and her heart lunge. Yes, this was going to be a great year.

By the end of class, Alexander had managed to correctly perform the charm on his own five separate times. Granted, there were only two students in the entire class who hadn't been able to perform the charm, but Lily still felt proud of him anyways.

On their way out, Alexander turned to Lily and said, "Thanks so much for your help in there"

"It was nothing," she answered, giving him a smile.

"Well, it meant something to me," he replied. "Maybe we can get together sometime soon and hang out. I promise I'm better at that than at Charms." He have her a wink before heading down the hall to catch up with his friends.

Lily watched him walk off and sighed. Yes, she would certainly like that. Just as she was reliving the moment when Alexander had touched her hand in class, James Potter came up to her and ruined the moment.

"Hey, Evans, we have rounds tonight," James stated.

She stared at him with a strange look on her face and then bluntly answered, "I know" and then walked away.

Not one to let things go, James continued to walk with her and said, "Shall we meet in the common room at ten and then head out from there?"

"I don't care," she said.

"Well, I'm just trying to do my Head Boy duties," James said, knowing that his statement would get her attention.

"Are you implying that you care about this more than I do?" she snapped.

"Not at all, I'm just concerned about doing this right and don't want to have to spend half the night looking for you so that we can begin rounds," he calmly answered.

She didn't say anything for a moment and had a look on her face that suggested she was trying to find some witty comment to answer him with. However, in the end she merely said, "Okay, I'll see you at ten."

Of course, the rest of the day went by quickly and before Lily had knew it, it was almost ten o'clock. She sat with Camilla and Libby in the Gryffindor common room, completing Flitwick's homework assignment.

Groaning, Lily stopped her work and stated, "Why did he have to be Head Boy?"

Camilla and Libby both looked up at her and gave sympathetic looks.

"And why did Dumbledore have to change the stupid rules?" Lily added. "Walking in pairs is stupid. I don't want to hang out with Potter and it's going to double the time it takes. I'm going to lose sleep and have to spend time with that little git."

"At least he's not bothering you in class," Libby said.

"So far," Lily grumbled.

"Maybe he's changed," Libby suggested.

Camilla turned to look at her, an expression of outrage on her face. "James Potter doesn't change. He's an ass and will always be an ass. It's in his genes or something. Besides, even if he has stopped harassing Lily in class, he's still a jerk. He thinks he's the shit and may I remind you both that he is nothing but an arrogant prick." Clearly Camilla was not over the fact that he had dated her in fourth year to get closer to Lily. In her mind, James Potter was no better than Death Eaters.

"You're absolutely right," Libby said, not wanting to anger her best friend.

"And here he comes now," Lily groaned. She slammed her books shut and left them with her two friends. "Wish me luck," she muttered as she walked away from them and towards her archenemy.

"Ready?" James asked as Lily approached him. James shoved his books into a bag and left it with the remaining Marauders. Lily was slightly shocked to see him doing any homework before ten o'clock. She knew that he did work, otherwise he wouldn't be top of the class, but she had always seen him half-ass it an hour before class started.

As the two left the Gryffindor common room and entered the castle's hallways, neither of them said a word to each other. It was clear from Lily's annoyed look and clenched fists that she did not want to be doing rounds with James. James, on the other hand, looked calm and collected, rather indifferent to the situation.

After twenty minutes of pure silence, James finally said, "So, Evans, how was your summer?"

She jumped when she heard his voice, surprised that he was actually talking to her. "Fine," she answered.

"What did you do?" he asked.

"Went to Rome," she answered.

"That sounds fun."

"It was."

After a few moments of silence, James said, "Well, my summer was great too, thanks for asking. Sirius came to live with me, which was always entertaining. We played Quidditch almost everyday. Then my parents, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and I all went to Greece for a week. It was great, we stayed at a really nice Wizard hotel near the beach."

He continued on and on about his summer, which Lily tried to block out as much as she could. The only problem was that there wasn't really anything else to do other than listen to what James had to say. Still, she didn't add very much to the conversation.

Somehow, James continued to ramble about his summer for half an hour, which at least made the time go by faster. He only stopped when they came across a fourth year Slytherin out of bed.

"What are you doing?" James asked, eyeing the boy up and down. The boy had dark brown hair and eyes. He had a smug look across his face, one that neither Lily nor James cared for.

"What's it matter to you," the boy snarled.

"Excuse me," Lily said, "He is Head Boy and I'm Head Girl so it is our business."

"I'm hungry, okay," the boy snapped.

"Well, you're also out of bed past hours," Lily stated. "That's five points from Slytherin and get back to your common room."

The boy turned around and headed back toward the dungeons, which was where the Slytherin dormitory was located. He was mumbling to himself as he wandered away, Stupid rules… head boy and girl my ass… filthy Mudblood."

That had stopped James dead in his track. He quickly sprinted the ten feet the boy had walked and forcefully put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "What's your name?" James demanded.

The boy had a startled look on his face and answered, "Colin, Colin Farnam."

"Well, Colin, you had better watch your mouth," James snapped.

At that Lily rushed over to the two boys. She didn't want James to make a big deal about people calling her filthy names. She didn't want to give him the pleasure of thinking that he somehow saved her.

"I didn't say anything," the boy stammered.

"Shut up," James snapped. "We both know what you said. Five points from Slytherin and get back to your dormitory before I decide to knock off another five."

At that the boy ran away, toward his common room. He had just lost his house ten points and certainly didn't want to lose any more.

"You didn't have to do that," Lily spitefully said.

"I didn't do anything," James answered.

Lily didn't seem to hear him and continued on to say, "I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself. Some stupid little Slytherin calling me that foul word doesn't bother me."

"I didn't do anything," James reasserted. "I knocked off points because that is a disgusting, foul word. If he had said it to anyone I would have knocked off points… Don't flatter yourself."

She stared at him in disbelief for a moment and had to run to catch up to him once she realized that he had continued to patrol the hallways without her. What was going on here? Why was James suddenly being so mean to her?

James, sensing her uneasiness continued by stating, "I mean, yes I did it because he called you a bad word, but I would have done the same for anyone. I just really don't like it when people use that word in front of me. It's foul and it's not even true. You got that spell in Charms before anyone else and you're Muggle born. That Anderson kid though, who comes from a Wizard family, didn't even manage to get it by the end of the class. Clear example of it not being true."

"Right," Lily foolishly said.

The rest of the evening was rather uneventful. They saw no one else roaming the halls late at night. For the majority of the time, they walked in silence, but there were instances of scattered small talk.

As they reached the portrait of the fat lady and said the correct password to enter the Gryffindor dormitory, Lily was still mulling over this new side of James.

"Night Evans," James hollered as he reached the boy's dormitory.

"Goodnight Potter," she replied in a soft, delayed voice. She wasn't even sure if he heard her parting words.

...

**Author's Note:** Hey everyone, thanks to those who reviewed the last chapter, I really appreciate it! Just a quick side note, I'm currently debating whether or not to up the rating on this story and would like to know other's opinions. Upping the rating to M could lead to some interesting advantages to the story, but at the same time, it will not make or break my vision for this piece. Anyways, please review and let me know what you think!


	4. Another Night of Rounds

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter or any of the other characters that are in the Harry Potter books. J. K. Rowling does, like everyone already know.

...

The next five weeks followed the same routine as the first couple days. Lily had seen Alexander once outside of class, but had worked with him in Charms on four separate occasions since the first day of classes. He always sent a friendly hello and smile her way, even if it was the fifth or sixth one of the day.

She had also continued her rounds with James Potter. Luckily, they were allowed to delegate the responsibilities to the sixth year prefects, meaning that Lily and James had only patrolled the hallways ten times since that first day. Nothing special occurred; they caught a couple more students out of bed and managed to make some small talk. However, the majority of their time together was spent in silence. At first, it was a very awkward silence, one that neither of them was very fond of. However, as the weeks passed on, they became slightly more comfortable with each other's silence.

Tonight marked the twelfth time that Lily and James had to patrol the hallways, which made Lily groan. They had been walking for nearly twenty minutes and she was bored out of her mind. They hadn't encountered a single student out of bed nor had they even heard a suspicious noise, which often lead to her and James talking for at least a couple of minutes. Tonight was silent though.

Eventually, James said, "So Evans, if you were stranded on a desert island, couldn't do magic, and could only bring one thing with you, what would it be?"

Lily glanced at James, thinking that he was off his rocker. Where did that come from? "Um, I don't know."

"Well, pick something."

"I don't want to."

"You have to."

"No, I don't," she snapped. "And what kind of a stupid question is that anyway?"

"It's not stupid."

"Yes it is."

James paused for a moment, stopped walking, and stared straight into her bright green eyes. "Can't you pull that stick out of your ass for just one day?"

His last comment shocked Lily even more than his first. How dare he say something so rude to her! "And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" she snapped, crossing her arms across her chest and staring back at him.

"It means exactly what it sounds like," James calmly replied. "Christ, Evans, you are so uptight and so concentrated on despising me that you're blind to the fact that I'm trying to be nice to you."

"Excuse me?"

"Honestly, can't you just relax enough to see that all I'm doing here is trying to make nights like tonight a little more bearable? All I did was ask you one silly little question and you snap at me and make me feel like an idiot. Would it really have killed you to put a smile on your face and answer the fucking question?" James exclaimed. Only after his speech did he break eye contact with Lily, shaking his head as he looked away.

Lily was shocked by this. James Potter had never said a single bad thing about her in his entire life and here he was, basically informing her that she was a bitch. She couldn't believe how rude he was!

"Potter, I did not snap," she retorted, "And I am a nice person and I'm not uptight either."

"Oh really?" he asked, doubtfully. "Name once instance in the past four years when you haven't called me a name or actually answered my questions in a pleasant tone of voice."

"Oh I will," she snapped, but as she began to rack her mind for examples, she couldn't think of a single one. Was she really that rude to James? But as she thought about it more, she came to the conclusion that he didn't deserve her respect nor her kindness. He was a fouled-hearted man. And she told him exactly how she felt, "James Potter, if you hadn't been such a complete asshole around me all the time, maybe I would have been a little bit nicer to you. However, you insisted on hexing everyone who got in your way!"

"Okay, fine," James admitted, "I was an immature ass for a while. What about now though? In case you haven't noticed, I haven't hexed anyone since the middle of last year, I haven't asked you out since last year, and well, and I was obviously chosen as Head Boy for a reason."

Come to think of it, Lily realized that James was telling the truth. He hadn't tried to ask her out yet, which was a huge improvement from prior years. She also hadn't seen him hex a single student. In fact, every time she saw him he seemed to be acting like a civilized human being.

Both Lily and James continued to patrol the hallways again, neither of them saying a single word. Lily was far too embarrassed and stubborn to admit that she had been treating him like rubbish.

And so they continued to walk in silence, until five minutes later, Lily finally said, "My giant teddy bear."

James gave her a quizzical look.

"If I were stranded on a deserted island, with no magical abilities, I'd want my giant teddy bear with me. My parents gave him to me for my third birthday and I've never been away from him for more than two days," Lily explained.

James smiled at her, taking her response as an apology.

"Why do you ask, anyways?" Lily asked.

"They say it tells a lot about the person," James answered.

"And what would you bring?"

"My broomstick," he replied. "That way I could fly off the deserted island and back into civilization." He grinned after he gave his answer.

"That's cheating," Lily exclaimed, but smiled. Yes, she was going to be nicer to James Potter. Sure, it wasn't going to be easy, but she was determined to try her hardest. After all, she was going to be spending a lot of time with him throughout the rest of the year. She certainly didn't want a repeat of the past five weeks; she didn't think that she could bear the silence again.

"No it's not," he replied.

"Well, it does say a lot about you," Lily stated. "It says that you're bending the rules."

"Or that I'm smart enough to think of an escape out," James said, adding, "But we all do know that I love to bend the rules too."

Lily rolled her eyes and sighed instinctively. She then immediately felt bad about it and hoped that James hadn't seen it. Being nice to him was going to be difficult. Every bone in her body was telling her to make a witty remark or ignore him completely.

Instead, she asked, "Would you rather lose your sight or your hearing?"

"My hearing," James answered. "You can still play Quidditch if you're deaf, but you can't play without your eyes."

"Always relating everything to Quidditch," Lily dully stated. The minute the words left her mouth she regretted them. Why was it so hard not to be mean to him? Every thought that popped into her head seamed to be putting James Potter down. It was stupid really, after all, her comment could be constructed as a simple statement. Lily knew that it was her tone that made it bad though. Her pure attitude towards him was just so hard to change.

James simply cringed and said, "You don't like Quidditch very much, do you?"

"Oh, I like it," she answered. "However, I think it's a bit of a sexist sport. I mean honestly, did you even realize that there is not a single girl on any of the House teams? My guess is that you don't allow girl on just because you all are afraid that we'll get hurt or something, which is just stupid."

James cut off her rambling though by saying, "Actually, Gryffindor has a girl on the team."

"What?"

"Yeah, she's a third year, Hannah Parker. Great flyer that girl is," James explained. "She's our new seeker. I heard that Ravenclaw has a girl this year too, some fifth year girl is one of their new chasers."

"Oh," Lily dumbly said, "I hadn't realized."

"That's probably because you're just getting your information from that Hufflepuff bloke, Alexander Leavitt," James replied. He then immediately looked away, as if something on the wall was suddenly very intriguing.

'We mostly talk about schoolwork," she said, as if she needed to explain why she was talking to Alexander. "I'm helping him with Charms, that's all."

"Yeah, okay."

"Really, we've only talked about Quidditch once," Lily insisted.

"Evans, I hate to burst your bubble, but what you talk about with your, um, friends, is really none of my business. I mean, well, you and I can talk about whatever because well, we have rounds," James stammered. This was the most tongue-tied Lily had ever seen him. "What I am trying to say is that he's a nice enough kid and a decent Quidditch player."

Lily had a confused look across her face and paused for a moment before saying, "Yes, he is a good guy."

The rest of the evening went by rather quickly. After getting off the slightly awkward topic concerning Alexander, Lily and James talked a bit more. There were still many silences, but they both knew this whole talking and being nice thing was new to them and decided to give it some time.

They arrived back in the Gryffindor common room; only a few students remained, including the Marauders. James said goodnight to Lily before hurrying over to his friends. He made the distinct effort not to watch her ascend the stairs leading to the girls' dormitory.

"How'd it go?" Remus asked.

"Surprisingly well," James answered.

Little did James know, but that was exactly what Lily was thinking as she opened the door to the room she shared with the four other Gryffindor seventh year girls. She was glad to see that her two roommates, Cheryl and Stacey, were not in the room. This way she could explain her night to Camilla and Libby without having to worry about them overhearing.

Lily didn't expect Camilla to harshly asked, "So what did Potter do this night that was so revoltingly Potterish?"

Lily was taken aback for a minute, unsure of what to say. James Potter most certainly did not act in a revolting manner. If anything he made her see that she was the one being revoltingly cruel.

Before Lily could say a word, Libby cut in and said, "The Marauders minus Potter decided it would be a really great idea to charm Camilla's quill to not absorb any ink. We spent nearly an hour having to deal with them."

This didn't surprise Lily at all. They were so immature. How could she have possibly doubted herself into believing that James Potter made a valid argument during rounds? He was a Marauder and the Marauders were notorious for their pranks. There was no changing that. Lily could only imagine him telling all his little friends how he managed to make her apologize. They were probably having a big laugh about it now.

"They are all such asses," Camilla screamed with frustration. "Even when I explained to them that it was my only quill, they told me that the only way they'd remove the charm was if I promised to take notes for them for the rest of the week. To make matters even worse, only after we spent thirty minutes searching for the anti-charm, those gits decided to tell me that they had invented the charm themselves! God, I could just strangle them sometimes."

"Camilla, I'm sorry," Lily said, understanding written across her face.

"It's not your fault that they have a combined maturity level of a five year old," Camilla replied. "It just sucks because I had no choice but to give in."

"You're not really going to take notes for them, are you?"

"They didn't say anything about them being very good notes," Camilla answered, a bittersweet smile spread across her face.

"Seriously though, Potter try anything this night?" Libby asked.

Lily thought about the night some more. She was still debating whether or not James Potter had actually been genuine with her or if he just wanted a good laugh to share with his friends. Her heart was telling her it was the former, but with her friends' opposition staring her straight in the eye, Lily allowed herself to be convinced that James was up to no good.

"He's an ass, that's all I'm going to say."


	5. Off to the Kitchens

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter or any of the other characters that are in the Harry Potter books. J. K. Rowling does, like everyone already know.

**Author's Note: **Thanks so much to Expectance, siriusforeva, and Blue-Eyed Chica for being the only three people who actually took thirty seconds out of their days to leave a review for chapter 4, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate that little bit of support. Anyways, hope that you all enjoy this chapter!

...

A week later, Lily found herself doing rounds with James once again. It was the first time since they had started to act decently toward each other, friendly even. During that entire week, Lily had just been waiting for James to do something to make her despise him. However, no such luck. She was convinced that he only wanted to befriend her for a good laugh to all his little friends, but none of them stopped, pointed, or laughed in her direction at all.

She even witnessed James telling off a third year Slytherin for hexing a second year Ravenclaw. In past years, James did this quite often. However, his retaliation to the Slytherins generally included him hexing them. This year though, Lily noticed that James used his Head Boy powers and simply took off points. She began to think that maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all. Certainly not the guy he was last year anyway.

"What'd you think of Slughorn's test?" James asked as they climbed the stairs to the third floor corridor.

"Not too bad, but then again I also had a private meeting with him to go over the material that I needed to study," Lily answered.

"Seriously?"

"Yes, Professor Slughorn always makes himself available for me," she replied.

"Is that why you're in the Slug Club to begin with?" James asked, referring to an exclusive group of students whom Slughorn favored and often met with.

"No," she laughed. "I actually enjoy meeting with teachers and getting to know them as human beings."

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"No," she said, slightly rolling her eyes and shaking her head. It wasn't the same cruel manner in which she used to react toward James Potter. Instead, it was as if they were good friends teasing each other. "I really like listening to all that's he's accomplished in his career."

"Like what? He's been at Hogwarts since forever," James stubbornly replied.

"No he hasn't," she stated, "He helped develop an antidote potion to several different kinds of snake bites, studied in South America for three years, and just has a lot of interesting stories to share."

"So the fact that he's helping you study for his tests means nothing to you?" James doubtfully asked.

"Well, it's just an added bonus," Lily admitted. "But really, your should hear some of our professor's stories. Did you know that McGonagall is getting her animagi license next month? She's going to transform herself into a tabby cat. Isn't that interesting."

James smirked and paused before answering, "Oh yes, indeed."

Lily gave him a quizzical look, but didn't say anything more to the matter. She was surprised, seeing as though James Potter excelled in all classes, he was particularly good at Transfiguration. She dropped it though and continued to defend herself by adding, "And I bet you never even took the time to ask Professor Binns about his journey through Eastern Europe."

"Wait a second," James interrupted, "Do you mean to tell me that you actually sat down with Professor Binns and had a long, drawn out conversation?"

Lily blushed but answered, "Well, yes."

"Weren't his classes boring enough for you?"

"They weren't that bad."

"He's a ghost and quite a boring one at that," James stated. "And he is so dull. I practically slept everyday and trust me, I tried my hardest not to."

"Okay, fine, he's boring," she agreed, "But he's still a professor and does have some interesting stories. You just have to sit down one on one with him to hear them."

"You know what your problem is?" James suddenly asked after a couple minutes of silence had gone by.

Lily scrunched her brows and stared at him in disbelief; was he only going to criticize her from now on? This was the second night of rounds that he had managed to tell her something that was wrong with her. She really didn't like where this was going. It was bad enough last week.

However, swallowing her pride, Lily boldly asked, "What?"

"You try too hard to be perfect," James answered.

Lily didn't see how this was a problem at all. What was wrong with trying to succeed in life? Just because she went out of her way to become a better witch, or rather a better person, didn't mean that there was a problem with her. She liked to be right, plain and simple. There was nothing wrong with that, at least not in Lily's mind.

"And?" she asked.

"And you suck up to teachers so that you are the perfect student. But if you're listening to Binns talk for hours and hours, what fun are you even having?" James asked. He saw Lily about to open her lips and he quickly added, "Don't give me any of this bullshit about hearing our professors talk is fun and enjoyable because I'm not going to buy it."

Lily opened her mouth again to protest, but then snapped it shut. For a moment she just looked at him, lost in her own mind. "I have fun," she insisted.

"What do you do for fun?" he asked.

"I just hang out with my friends," she answered. "Not to brag or anything, but I have friends in every house. If, as it seems you're saying, I'm so boring, then why do they all stick around?" She was definitely getting defensive now.

"I didn't say that you were boring," James quickly said. "All I asked is what you do for fun."

"Well, I do lots of stuff," Lily snapped. "I, I go down near the Great Lake with my friends a lot. I charmed my Muggle record player to work here, so I listen to music with my friends too. I've introduced them to some Muggle music… When I'm home I go to the movies and over the summer holidays I'm always making plans to go shopping or attending a party or something like that. I do know how to Apparate to people's houses."

"Okay, okay," he said, putting his hands up in a very defensive pose. "I don't doubt that you have friends, I get it. All I was saying is that here, at school, other than just hanging out, what do you do?"

"Lots of things," she angrily answered. "Just because I'm not always off getting into trouble and breaking the rules like you and your friends, it doesn't mean that I don't have fun here! I have lots of fun without breaking any rules and I don't get into any trouble because of it. You know, you think that the only way to enjoy yourself is by breaking the rules but look how many bloody points you and your little friends have lost Gryffindor over the years. And how many have I lost? None! While you were off hexing people for fun and running around the castle late at night, I was having fun in a civilized manner. To top it all off, when you were in detention, I was actually spending time with my friends. So don't even suggest that you have more fun than I do because it's like comparing apples and oranges!"

"Have you ever broken a school rule?" James asked, skepticism written across his face.

Lily thought that this was quite an abrupt topic change. What on earth did this have to do with having fun? Besides, didn't she just tell him off for breaking so many school rules?

'Well, have you?" he asked again.

"I, I," Lily thought about it some more, "Yes, I have."

"Really, what was it?"

"I was up in the Astronomy Tower one night, if you must know," she replied.

James studied her face and body movements for a minute before asking, "Who were you with?"

"None of your business," she quickly stated.

Once again, James was peering at her, a look of skepticism on his face. "You were with someone, weren't you?"

"Of course," she snapped.

"Evans."

"Okay, fine," she admitted, "I accidentally missed a lesson and went up there one night to catch up on my studies."

James burst into laughter, something that Lily was afraid of. She could just see him telling this to half the school. Why did she have to tell him this? Why was she so stupid? Never, ever again was she going to trust James Potter with such secret information. Everyone was going to think that she was some prude little girl. Or worse, what if Alexander found out about this and stopped flirting with her? She was so close too; she knew he was going to ask her out soon. But no, she had just royally screwed herself over by admitting to James Potter that she was that girl who actually went to the Astronomy Tower to do homework.

"I can't believe that you've never broken a school rule," he finally said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Well, I think you've broken enough to make up for my lack there of," Lily miserably said, the image of James telling the whole school still vivid in her mind.

As if he could read minds, James added, "I won't tell, don't worry."

"Thanks."

"It's just amazing to me though that you've never broken a single, little rule in your entire life," he said, still shaking his head. "It's remarkable, really."

"Jealous?" she coyly asked.

"Ha, not the slightest," he laughed, but then in a more serious tone he added, "You know, you can go through life abiding all the rules and you'll live an ordinary life. But if, for just a moment, you take a risk and break those rules, well, you might just find yourself face to face with the best thing that could have ever happened to you."

His head was slightly cocked as he looked at her and his eyes were so soft. Lily felt her stomach flood with butterflies and her heart stop for just a moment. She didn't know why, but something about James's words mixed with that look across his face made her feel something very different inside. It wasn't bad, definitely not bad, but she wasn't sure what it was.

The moment was lost soon enough though and James broke his gaze, forcing Lily to snap back to reality. From his nervous glance towards her and his loss of words, she knew that he felt something too. She just didn't know what it was.

To take her mind away from that moment, she asked, "You don't regret all of the rule breaking that you've done?"

He smiled at her, a charming look on his face, "I never said that."

"What?"

"I regret a lot of the things that I've done," he replied, "But those few good times mixed in it are worth every detention and every point lost."

"Like what?" she pried.

He grimly smiled at her and shook his head as he answered, "That, I cannot tell you."

She cocked her head and looked quizzically at him.

"Sorry Evans, but I really can't tell you," he insisted, "Once a Marauder, always a Marauder and the secrets we have are going with me to the grave."

Slightly annoyed that he wouldn't tell her, yet slightly glad that he didn't betray his best friends, Lily found herself thinking deeply as she and James walked in silence. She really had never broken a single rule while at Hogwarts. She was a perfectionist and a people-pleaser. She hated disappointing anyone. Of course, she held strong beliefs of her own and would certainly put up a good fight, but she never even considered breaking a rule in the process.

Was she really missing out on golden opportunities? Or was James just messing with her mind? Both were possible, but Lily didn't know which one to side with. James had seemed so sincere with her, but then again, he said it himself, 'Once a Marauder, always a Marauder.' That was reason enough not to trust him.

Still, she couldn't help but think that maybe he was right. Maybe she did try too hard to be the perfect student. Or, maybe she worked hard to succeed in life and it truly was working. After all, she was Head Girl, which was most certainly attributed to her diligence, work ethic, and her ability to follow the rules.

Then again, James managed to get Head Boy and broke rules all the time. Maybe he was right. Maybe the key to happiness was breaking free of the expected.

"Let's do it," she suddenly said, breaking the castle's silence.

"Do what?" he asked.

"Let's go break a rule."

"Evans, we're on duty."

"I want to see what I'm missing out on."

"Evans, you're delusional," James said, "We're on duty, we can't just go off breaking a rule right now."

"Nothing big or anything, just something small."

"Evans"

"I want to have fun," she replied, stopping in her tracks and looking up at him.

He sighed as he looked at her, sinking into himself. "Okay."

"Really?" she asked, brightening up at once.

"Want to sneak into the kitchens with me?" James suggested.

"Really?" Lily asked again, an excited smile forming at her lips. "You know where the kitchens are?"

"Amateur," he joked, "Follow me."

With that said, they turned from where they were standing and headed back down the stairs that they had climbed only minutes earlier. Lily felt a rush of excitement flood through her veins. She was going to break a school rule. This was just bizarre, surreal really.

Shortly after their initial descent, Lily and James stopped in front of a portrait of a barrel of fruit. Lily looked around, wondering why they had stopped. "Are we here?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered.

Lily felt her stomach lunge; a mixture of nerves and excitement ran through her body.

"Swear you won't go telling everyone where to find this place?" James asked.

"I swear."

"Okay."

"Wait," Lily suddenly gasped.

"What?"

"Maybe, well maybe this isn't such a good idea," Lily stammered. "I mean, we are on duty and if we're caught we'll get into twice as much trouble… I just don't know if this is such a good idea."

"Evans," James warned.

"I know I said I wanted to, but I don't know now."

"Evans, we don't have to," James softly replied. "If you want to go on living life the way you have been, abiding by everyone's rules, then be my guest. I'm not going to force you to go into the kitchens."

She felt her heart sink, "Okay, fine, I want to go in."

"Are you sure?"

"No," she squealed.

"It's just sneaking into the kitchens, its not life or death you know," he teased.

She weakly smiled before saying, "Okay, let's do it."

With that said, James reached his hand out and tickled the pear in the picture. Suddenly, the portrait swung open, revealing a small door. Lily followed James inside, her heart beating faster than ever. When she came into the main room of the kitchen, Lily was surprised to see so many house elves wandering around, cleaning up after dinner. It really was an amazing kitchen; they seemed to have everything imaginable.

"So?" James asked, awaiting her reaction.

"Well, that was quite exhilarating," Lily replied, "Shall we go now?"

James laughed until he realized that she wasn't kidding. "Evans, we only just got here. You haven't even gotten yourself a midnight snack."

"I know, but I think that just coming here was a big step forward, don't you?"

He shot her a doubtful look.

"Okay, fine, you win," she said.

"What would you like to eat? Some more dessert from tonight's dinner?"

"Um, alright."

James looked like he was raised here. He walked through the kitchen, knowing exactly where everything was and personally greeted each individual house elf. He then put two plates of pumpkin pie on a nearby table and motioned for Lily to join him.

As soon as Lily took a bite of the pie, she let out a slight noise of enjoyment. She loved Hogwarts pumpkin pie and had sadly missed out on it that evening because of her study party with two of her Raveclaw friends. Yes, this was definitely worth it. It was a good way to break her first Hogwarts rule.

Once they finished eating and snuck back out of the kitchens and into the castle's main corridors, Lily and James began to head back toward the Gryffindor common room. "That was amazing," Lily stated.

"Yeah, they have really good pie," James commented.

"Well yes, but I mean we just snuck away from our Head duties to sneak into the kitchens to eat pie," she joyously exclaimed. "Can you believe it?"

He laughed and replied, "You can now officially call yourself a true Hogwarts student."

"You really think that many people break the rules?" she asked.

"Honestly, yes," he replied.

She laughed as well and said, "You have no idea how exhilarated I feel and all I did was eat pie. It's so petty that it's stupid, but I love it."

"Well, what do you know, Lily Evans, the newest addition to the Hogwarts rule-breakers," James teased.

He teased her the rest of the way back, but she didn't mind at all. She seemed to take great pleasure and pride in the fact that she wasn't perfect anymore. It was odd too because she spent her entire life wanting to have it all and wanting to be the one that everyone else envied. She wanted to be the most loved, respected, and brilliant student. She wanted to live a life of perfection. But here she was, laughing about sneaking into the Hogwarts kitchen. It was far from perfection, at least in the conventional definition of perfection.

When they arrived in the Gryffindor Tower, no one was left in the common room and the only light remaining was from the dancing flames from the fireplace.

They said their goodnights and just as James had placed his foot on the stairway to the boy's dormitory, he heard Lily yell, "Hey Potter."

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"Anytime, Evans, anytime."

...

**Author's Note 2:** Please review! Every review gives me the inspiration to write the next chapter! And thanks for reading!


	6. Overhearing the Slytherins

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter or any of the other characters that are in the Harry Potter books. J. K. Rowling does, like everyone already know.

**Author's Note:** Thanks so much to opungo, Expectance, Gemm, candio08, KMK25, BlAcKdAuGhTeR, marauderette92, monse evans, emnic, LilyandJamesLover, Blue-Eyed Chica, Romancing Hogwarts x3, snaplappl21, PuppyBekaCooper, redglasses, and Magical Singer Gal for reviewing! It means the world to me!

...

"Do you have rounds again tonight?" Libby asked Lily, looking up from her newly polished, bright red nails.

"Yes," she answered as she closed this week's copy of "With Weekly."

"Poor you," Libby said a smiled.

It was just Lily and Libby in the dormitory that evening. Camilla was still in the library, working on a project with a Hufflepuff boy named Harrison, also known as Alexander's best friend. Camilla and Harrison had been friends since third year and she swore to Lily that she was going to find out as much as humanly possible about Alexander's developing crush on her.

"It's not so bad," Lily admitted.

"What? Rounds with Potter, not bad? Who are you and what have you done with Lily Evans?" she joked.

Lily laughed and replied, "I don't know, he's different than he was last year. It's weird, he's almost human."

Libby gave her a quizzical look.

"He's changed a lot," Lily asserted.

"But he's still James Potter."

"Well, yes."

"He's still the asshole that broke Camilla's heart and asked you out a grand total of like a billion times last year. Besides, he's always up to something and can't be trusted," Libby plainly stated.

"Well, yes," Lily slowly said, but she didn't agree with Libby's latter statement. James Potter could be trusted. After all, it had been nearly two weeks since she had admitted that she had gone to the Astronomy Tower late at night to actually do work, and he still hadn't blabbed her secret.

"Lily," Libby said, her voice somewhat cautious.

"All I'm saying is that he's changed."

"Why are you defending him?" Libby asked.

Lily felt her heart speed up. Why was she defending him? Sure, they had become friends, but only during their rounds. Outside of Head Boy and Girl duties, they rarely spoke. This didn't make them true friends. No, they weren't friends, more like acquaintances really. So why was she defending him in the first place?

Perhaps it was because she knew that her logical thinking that they were just acquaintances was wrong, despite the fact that she had tried endlessly to convince herself otherwise. Lily still couldn't shake that moment they had shared. It was so simple and nothing even happened, but it wouldn't leave her thoughts. All she could think about was James's eyes and how soft they looked when he spoke to her. It was as if they were trying to tell her something that his words couldn't. She didn't know what it was though, even after countless reenactments in her mind.

As she looked at Libby, her long blonde hair flowing behind her and her icy blue eyes digging deep into Lily's mind, she thought for a moment that she could tell her about that night. She thought that maybe Libby would understand, maybe even know what to make of it.

She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She promptly shut her mouth and paused before finally saying, "I'm not defending him. He's just a stupid prat anyways."

Libby seemed satisfied with that answer and grabbed her nail polish bottle again, this time painting her toes to match her fingernails. Lily just sighed and opened her magazine again. She didn't read it though, just used it to hind behind. Every so often, she turned the page, just to play the part. However, her mind was still warped onto James Potter. 'He has changed,' she reassured herself.

Shortly after her exchange with Libby, Lily founds herself once again alongside James Potter for another night of rounds. Being with him only backed Lily's view that he had changed. The summer had certainly done something to James, something had to have happened to alter her personality. One moment he was an annoying prat and the next he was a decent guy, charming even.

Lily was determined to find out what made him so different. How could one man do a complete 180 turn in the course of one summer? And could it be the reason as to why he was chosen for Head Boy in the first place?

"So, Potter," she began, "Tell me the truth, what made Dumbledore pick you for Head Boy?"

"No clue," he answered, a little too quickly.

"Why won't you tell me?" she whined.

"Why won't you call me James?" he smoothly asked.

Lily paused though, taken back from his response. For a brief moment her heart seemed to stop, frozen in time. Her insides felt like scrambled eggs and she paused. To her surprise, James stopped moving too. If it weren't for the blinking of his eyes, she would have been sure that time really had stopped.

All too soon, everything seemed to speed up again. He no longer looked at her and he began to walk again, making Lily shuffle to catch up with him.

"You call me Evans," she stated.

"Only because you'd probably kill me if I called you Lily," he laughed, but only half-heartedly.

She blushed and replied, "No I wouldn't."

"Yes you would."

"Maybe the old me would have, but not now," she answered.

"The new you?" he asked, doubtfully.

"That's right," Lily said. "You're not the only one around here who's changed. After all, I'm a little bit of a rule-breaker now, remember?" She laughed as she spoke, revealing perfect, sparkling white teeth.

"How could I ever forget?" he mocked. "And it was such a huge rule too."

"Shut up," she teased.

"No can do, Lily," he said. She smiled back at him, for some reason, it didn't sound as weird as she thought it would. In her mind, she was always Evans to his Potter. But she knew that she could get used to this, it sounded almost natural.

"Wouldn't expect you to, James," she replied.

"Good."

"You still never answer my question though," she informed him.

"What question would that be, Lily?"

She liked the casual use of her name. "What made Dumbledore choose you for Head Boy?"

"I can't tell you," James replied.

"You certainly do have a lot of secrets," she commented, thinking back to his very secretive methods of breaking the rules.

"It's all sort of one secret," he said.

"Now I'm intrigued," Lily replied. "You broke a school rule, but it also made Dumbledore choose you for Head Boy. It doesn't make any sense at all."

"Sorry, still can't tell you."

"Just a hint?" she asked.

He thought about it for a moment before replying, "Swear you won't ever repeat this?"

"You have my word."

"Okay," he began. Once again he paused, as if he was trying to figure out if he should really tell her or not. Evidently, he deemed her trustworthy enough and said, "About a month before school ended last year I saved someone's life."

"What?" Lily asked, giving him a strange look. "Whose? And how?"

"I can't tell you," he replied.

"How do I know that you're telling the truth?" she asked.

"You can't know for sure, unless you take my word," he answered.

"Why doesn't half the school know about this? I thought that you would have wanted to brag about being a hero and everything," Lily stated.

"Dumbledore made me promise," he replied. "Besides, it's really not my secret to tell."

"This isn't fair, I really want to know now," Lily whined.

He laughed and said, "You're the one that insisted on knowing."

She let out a grumpy groan, but let it go, at least outwardly. On the inside, she was still in complete and utter shock. How could James Potter save someone's life and not even brag about it? How could he have not claimed his ticket to being a hero, especially when it was staring him right in the face?

Lily's thought process was cut short though as she and James heard noises coming from down the corridor. She couldn't make out what they were saying, only the muffled sound traveled. She looked at James, whose body was very stiff. He didn't look natural, not like any other time when they had needed to send students back to bed. No, this was different. James knew it was different.

He glanced back at her and put his finger to his lips, indicating for her to remain silent. He then began to slowly move closer to the noise, motioning for Lily to follow him. The only problem was that despite their small steps, the voices seemed to be getting louder at a much higher rate. James sensed this as well and his eyes bulged. He glanced around the corridor and spotted a nearby door. With his heart racing, he opened the door as quietly as he could. Lily followed him at once, silently closing the door so that only a small crack remained open.

"I don't even know why I'm bothered to be here at all," the first boy said. Lily couldn't see his face, but from the sound of his voice, she guessed that he was either a fifth or sixth year student.

"I know, but my mother wouldn't here it any other way," the second boy said, he also sounded like a fifth or sixth year, although his voice wasn't nearly as scruffy as the first boys' was.

"At least your mother understands though," the first boy began, "Mine doesn't even think I'm going to join. She keeps going on and on about how its okay for father, but I'm too young."

"Well, I have a lot to prove," the second boy replied, "My stupid brother obviously isn't any good. He's ruined the family name. Mother exiled him during the summer holidays. Can't say that I'm surprised though, he actually dated a Mudblood last year."

"Don't let it bring you down; every family as one bad seed," the first boy sympathetically said.

As the footsteps grew louder, Lily didn't even dare to breathe out. She knew exactly what they were talking about, even if she didn't know who they were. From the sounds of it, both boys were Slytherins and both couldn't wait to join Lord Voldemort in his quest to rid the world of Muggles and Muggle-borns, including herself.

"I know, I know," the second boy answered. "Enough about that, it's making me depressed.

"Certainly," said the first boy. "Now which way was it to the kitchens again?"

Once the footsteps had faded off into the distance, Lily let out her breath. It was only then that she realized exactly how close she was to James. She could feel his breath against her forehead and his body loosen against hers and then tighten once again. For the second time that night, she felt her heart speed up and her stomach fill with butterflies. Lily took a chance and looked up at James. Through the dim light that streaked through the crack in the slightly opened door, she saw him looking down at her too. Neither of them spoke; the only sound was the light exhales from their lips.

James slightly tilted his head forward and Lily could now feel the warmth from his breath across more of her face. She was convinced that he was going to kiss her and the butterflies in her stomach began to flutter more than ever. His nose was only centimeters from hers, their lips just inches apart.

She could sense it coming, she could see it coming. She didn't know what to do about it though. Part of her told her to stop it, yell at him and then run away. The other part of her told her to stay though.

Lily never had the chance to decide though. All of a sudden, James jerked away from her, briskly opening the door and exiting the tiny room. Reality came crashing back and it was as if that moment in that tiny room had never existed.

Breaking the silence, James asked, "Can you believe that just happened?"

Her heart sped up again; maybe it wasn't just a moment lost in time. "No, what was that?" If she didn't know exactly what their moment had meant, maybe he did.

"They were talking about joining You-Know-Who," he stated, staring intently at her.

Lily felt stupider now than she had in her entire life. Of course he was talking about what they had just observed, not about them. How could she have been such a fool? Better yet, why was she acting like such a fool? Why did she even care? She and James didn't have "moments" anyways. It was just a dumb lapse in judgment on her part. She had made a situation into something that it wasn't, something that wouldn't ever happen.

It felt so real though. She could feel him staring at her, feel his breath against her. Just thinking about it made her feel excited again. No, no, no. This couldn't actually be happening; it was all a figment of her imagination. She didn't want to be kissed by James Potter. He was a friend, but nothing more and he never would be anything more. She was just being a fool, plain and simple. She needed to forget that it ever even happened.

"Um, yeah, right," she said, shaking off her previous, completely bizarre, emotions.

"Know who one of them is?" James asked. "Sirius's brother."

"Really? Sirius has a brother?" Lily asked, doing her best to push aside anything she may have felt for that slight instant.

"Yeah, but Sirius's mum kicked him out and he lives with me now," James replied.

"You know, now that you say that, they do sound alike," Lily admitted.

"Wait until I tell him," James muttered.

"Why? If that's his brother, it sounds like the entire family is interested in the Dark Arts, except for Black, erm, I mean Sirius," Lily corrected herself, realizing that everyone whom she had referred to in the sentence was a Black.

"Its just that, well, it's just different," James managed to get out.

"How so?" Lily pressed on.

James sighed and after a long pause, admitted, "Over the summer You-Know-Who's small group of followers came to my house. Sirius and I weren't supposed to hear anything, but, being us we managed to listen in on the entire conversation. They asked my parents to join."

Lily let out a small gasp.

"Obviously they said no," James continued, "But it was scary. They wanted my parents support because of our bloodline, which in their minds is perfect, not a drop of Muggle blood. It's stupid really, but that's all that matters to them. Anyways, they got mad when my parents said no and I'm certain that they would have hurt my parents if more of his supporters had been there. There were only two of them though; Sirius's cousin and her husband. They asked to talk with me, but my father just about killed them when they did. They left and my parents never actually said anything to Sirius or me, but it shook him up a little. We always knew that just about his entire family were Slytherins and wanted Muggle-borns gone, but to join forces with the You-Know-Who was even a shock to us."

Lily was surprised to hear all of this. She knew that Voldemort was on the rise and hated Muggles. She knew that he had murdered several people and that he had a small number of followers, but she was unaware of this recruiting process.

What surprised her even more though was that James was revealing this information to her. She was flattered that he trusted her with this information, but still surprised that he let on so much about his family's personal affairs.

Maybe this was what changed him so much though. It made perfect sense. With the acquisition of this knowledge, James was shown a lot of responsibility and what faced him in the future. There was no doubt in Lily's mind that he would be approached once school ended, probably from both sides of the fight. She only hoped that it would all be over by then.

Not knowing quite what to say, Lily finally said, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he replied.

James didn't say much left as they walked back to Gryffindor. He seemed to be lost in his own train of thoughts. For once, Lily didn't mind this either. She too had a lot of new information to process through, from the serious topic to her moment with James. She didn't want any distractions at the moment.

Once they were back in the common room, James muttered a small "goodnight" to Lily before heading up the stairs to the boy's dormitory. Lily, following his actions, went up her own staircase, back to her room.

Only Camilla and Libby were there, the other two were in the common room still. They both had huge smiles on their faces once Lily walked in. However, Lily was oblivious this and simply plopped down onto her own bed. She wasn't thinking about what she overheard the Slytherins say anymore nor could she think about James's family situation. Instead, her mind focused on the butterflies that had filled her stomach when she was close to him. It wasn't natural, it couldn't be normal. He was James Potter; up until that night he was still only "Potter" to her. What was happening to her?

Maybe it was just the situation, not the people involved. Yes, that was perfectly reasonable. Anyone would get excited being that close to a member of the opposite sex, especially when they were close enough to share a kiss. She was relieved by that thought. James Potter was not someone who she fancied and she wanted to keep it that way.

"Lily!" screeched Camilla, "Weren't you listening to a word I just said?"

She stared blankly at her friend. Lily hadn't even realized that anyone was talking, let alone talking directly to her. "Um, sorry, I must have spaced out for a moment there."

"Don't you want to know what Harrison said?" she asked, a large grin forming at her lips.

"About what?" Lily cautiously asked.

"Alexander, silly," Camilla replied.

Alexander! That's right, Camilla was studying with Alexander's best friend that night. She had promised to find out everything she could about Lily's current boy situation. How could she have forgotten about that? She had been obsessing over Alexander since sixth year and it was finally her chance.

"Oh, of course, tell me now please," Lily said.

"Well, Harrison told me that he's definitely got a thing for you," Camilla responded. "Didn't say when, but he's got plans to ask you out!"

"Can you see it now?" Libby put in, "You'll be Mrs. Alexander Leavitt. Or do you prefer Lily Leavitt?"

Lily's heart suddenly sped up, but not in a good way. That was jumping the gun a bit too far, even if it was only a joke. She forced a smile and laugh.

Libby and Camilla continued to gush about it for a bit longer and Lily played along. However, it didn't feel how she had expected it to. She had wanted to be with Alexander for such a long time, but now that her opportunity was finally here, she wasn't sure if she still wanted it.

Her mind kept jumping back to James and their kiss that almost was. She couldn't help but wonder what it would have felt like to kiss James. She immediately cursed herself for even wondering that; this was James Potter she was thinking about here! That wasn't supposed to happen. James Potter was just supposed to be a friend, nothing more. Definitely nothing more.

She forced herself to think about James's negative aspects. Lily reminded herself about how he had treated Camilla and all of the hexes that he had performed over the years. Even recently he had been insulting her, which was quite rude, even if it did turn her into a better person. But no, this was James Potter, the boy who she had rejected at least a hundred times and for good reason too.

Alexander, however, was perfect. Yes, he was the guy for her. He was the picture perfect, cookie cutter boyfriend. He was the type of guy that she could bring home to meet her parents.

However, James Potter didn't escape her thoughts that night.

...

**Author's Note 2: **Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! And please review, it helps with the writing process!


	7. Alexander or James?

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter or any of the other characters that are in the Harry Potter books.

**Author's Note:** Thanks so much to candio08, opungo, KMK25, BlAcKdAuGhTeR, snaplappl21, pippapear, marauderette92, Magical Singer Gal, Expectance, Blue-Eyed Chica, Romancing Hogwarts x3, Tracker-3, GGHSMFREAK, Gemm, and carrymeaway for reviewing!

...

A few days later, Lily had come to her senses about James Potter. He was just a friend, nothing more. That moment that she had experienced with him wasn't a moment at all. She was just making a big deal about nothing at all. It obviously hadn't affected James at all. She hadn't even spoken to him since that night. Even when she tried to glance his way and catch his eye, it always failed. He was never looking back at her.

She felt like a complete idiot for even thinking that something might have aspired between them. He certainly didn't act on it and neither would she, not that she would even if James Potter had done anything more about it. Just imagine what everyone would say about that! They'd probably all die from shock to start with. Even more though, she could clearly see the look on Camilla's face; she would definitely feel betrayed. Lily stopped thinking about that though, realizing that she would never allow it to happen in the first place.

To her delight, she no longer had to deal with her mind racing about James Potter. At that moment, she was walking towards the entrance of the castle to meet Alexander. Earlier that day, after Charms, he had pulled Lily aside and asked to privately meet with her. Camilla and Libby were positive that Alexander was finally going to ask her out, otherwise why would he have wanted to meet at the entrance. Lily, however, wasn't completely sure. Sure, Harrison had told Camilla that Alexander did intend to ask her out and when they met to study it was always in the library, but still Lily doubted it. He was always that unattainable guy, but now he was getting closer and closer to being her guy. It just seemed too good to be true.

As she approached the doors, she saw that Alexander was waiting for her. He flashed her one of his brilliant smiles that made her heart skip a beat.

"Want to go for a walk outside?" he asked. Luckily, earlier he had told Lily to bring her cloak because the November air was cold.

"I'd love to," she answered as she threw her Gryffindor scarf around her neck.

As they walked around the grounds, they hardly saw anyone else outside. There was a couple of second year Ravenclaws hurrying back into the castle, but it was otherwise silent.

"So, what's up?" Lily asked, she could feel her stomach twisting inside her.

"Not a lot," he replied, "We haven't really seen each other in a while, that's all."

"We studied for Charms together two days ago," she sweetly remarked.

He blushed, something that Lily had never seen him do. "I mean we really haven't talked in quite a while."

"Oh," she dumbly replied.

"I have a big Quidditch game on Saturday, are you going to come watch?" he asked.

"Of course," she answered, "Who are you playing?"

"Slytherin."

"Well, good luck," she replied.

"I'm going to need it. They crushed Ravenclaw a couple weeks ago and I really want to get into the finals. You know? It's my last year and it's just so important to me," Alexander informed him.

"Well, Ravenclaw isn't really any good this year, are they?" she asked. "I mean, we crushed them too."

"Yeah, but you've got a great team too, although I hate to admit it. Potter must be a good captain or something."

"Well, he was captain last year too and we didn't win the Quidditch Cup," she cut in. She really didn't want to discuss James Potter now, not with Alexander.

"Yeah, but that was just bad luck. No one could have seen your star keeper getting deathly ill two days before the final match," he replied.

"I guess not," she replied with a sigh.

"Hmm, speak of the devil, there he is now," Alexander said and pointed to the group of students exiting the castle, not fifty feet from where they stood.

Lily felt her heart speed up and her eyes pop open. To make matters even worse, the Quidditch field was behind them, meaning that James was going to have to pass right by Lily and Alexander. Just great.

As the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team passed by them, James came to a stop. He told his team to start drills and he'd be there soon. He looked back and forth between Lily and Alexander, unsure what to say.

"How many days a week do you practice, Potter?" Alexander asked.

"Five," he answered, "You?"

"Same."

"Funny, never ran into you out here though," James remarked.

"We do early morning practices. There's no better wake up call."

"Ah, yes, well I like my team well rested."

"Of course."

"I suppose I'd better get over there," he stated, but didn't move. He turned to Lily and said, "Rounds tonight, right?"

"Um, yes," she answered. It was the first time that either boy had even acknowledged her presence.

"See you then," James said, flashing Lily and smile as turned away, broomstick in hand.

"Hmm, I guess I'm going to have to up our practices to five times a week," Alexander mumbled to himself.

"Didn't you just say that you practiced five times a week," Lily stated.

"Yeah, but we really practice four times. It's just a little tactic of mine. Find out what the other team is up to and then practice at or above that level."

"I see," she said, an essence of boredom present in her voice.

"But that's not why I wanted to see you tonight," Alexander said. He looked her straight in the eye. There was a charming glow to his face, one that didn't go unnoticed by Lily.

"Really?" she slyly asked.

"Really," he replied, flashing her a smile. "I've had a lot of fun with you this year."

"I've had a lot of fun with you too."

"And, well, I was wondering if maybe you'd want to be my girlfriend?" Alexander asked.

She stared at him and felt her heart grow twice its normal size. This was the moment she had been waiting for. This was the moment that she and Alexander would finally call themselves a couple. He was her perfect guy; her dream guy really… wasn't he?

Later that night, Lily was in the common room with Libby and Camilla, telling them exactly what happened, when James tapped her on the shoulder. Camilla shot him a death stare, Libby stopped her excited shrieking, and Lily exclaimed, "Is it time already?"

Bidding her friends goodbye and promising to finish her story once she returned, Lily exited through the portrait hole with James.

"Shrieking girls, eek," he said, a smile forming at his lips.

"Shut up," Lily laughed.

"I'm serious, how do you girls do it? I mean, honestly, all that girlish screaming must be tiring," James stated.

"You're not funny."

"I'm not trying to be," he said, putting his hands up in defense. "But honestly, it's always 'oh my God, I can't believe her!' It's really quite unnerving and ear-piercing." He had put on his best girlish voice, but had sounded more like an obnoxious two year old than a seventeen year old witch.

However, it did get a rise out of Lily, who truly did laugh at his sad impersonation.

"Ha," James exclaimed. "I am funny."

"You are a piece of work," she replied.

"But I'm funny."

"Okay, you're funny, I'll admit it."

"Alert the press, Lily Evans has just called me funny. Wow, now that's something for the record books. It might even go down in _Hogwarts, A History._"

"Okay, now you're not being funny."

"Lily, I'm only joking," he replied. "I really don't think they'd publish it."

"Well, if you think girls are bad, what about guys? I mean honestly, the way you and Alexander interacted today was quite embarrassing, don't you think?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Excuse me, but the whole macho act was kind of dumb. You two were looking at each other like you were ready to pounce or something. And then of course the whole conversation about when you practice, real classy there," she informed him.

"One, he started it," James began. "And two, we're captains, it's different than the rest of the male species."

"I don't buy it," she replied.

"Speaking of Alexander," James suddenly said, "I suppose I owe you a congratulations."

Cautiously, Lily looked at him. "What are you talking about?"

"He asked you out, didn't he?"

"How did you know?" Lily slowly asked.

"Well, first of all, the two of you were having a walk outside in the middle of November. What sane gent is freeze his ass off unless he's out practicing Quidditch or trying to get alone with some girl. Secondly, he's been flirting with you since the beginning of school. Thirdly, last week you only gave him a warning when we caught him out of bed, even though you took five points off from a Gryffindor the week before. And lastly, Camilla and Libby were shrieking more than usual, which can only mean one thing," he replied.

"Wow, and I thought that you weren't observant."

"Only when I want to be," he charmingly answered. He then put a serious look on his face and said, "So, I repeat, congratulations."

"You're forgetting one thing."

"What's that?"

"I said no."

James stared at her in disbelief, a look that could have been a mirror image to the one that Alexander had given her hours earlier. Everything about Alexander had seemed so perfect and she thought that was what she wanted. However, when she opened her mouth to answer him, she couldn't find the words she was looking for. Although her brain was telling her to say yes, her heart was saying no.

"You said no?" James asked, reiterating her words.

"That's right."

"Why?"

"What?" Lily asked, shocked by his intrusive question.

"Sorry, but come on Lily, it was pretty obvious that you liked him too. I mean, I've seen the way you look at him in class. Any idiot could spot it from a kilometer away," he explained.

"It just didn't feel right," she answered.

"It didn't feel right," he stated, giving her a look that told her he didn't buy it.

"I really don't know how to explain it."

"Try."

"Why do you even care?"

"We're friends and we're stuck doing rounds that can get quite boring if we don't talk about something. I really don't want to go back to those days, do you?" He reminded her.

"Okay, fine," she said. "But you have to promise that you won't laugh or go off and tell anyone else."

"Cross my heart."

"You know when you've liked someone for such a long time that they've become sort of unattainable? Well, that's what it was like with Alexander for me. We've always been friendly, but I still didn't really expect him to ever like me back. Then when he did though, I sort of felt disappointed. It just wasn't how I imagined it would be. In my mind, him asking me out was this big deal. It was romantic and perfect. But in reality, it just felt normal. It wasn't anything special… he didn't feel like anyone special anymore. I know it's stupid, but when you're with someone and there's a connection there, you just know it. But with Alexander, I didn't feel it," she confessed.

"I see."

"Has that ever happened to you?" Lily asked. "Have you ever liked someone so much that once you really got to them, you were disappointed?"

James stared directly into her bright green eyes and didn't say a word for a minute. Then, as if he suddenly found his voice, he sharply answered, "No."

Lily felt a chill run down her spine. Did this include her? She knew that James had liked her in years past; he had been so obnoxiously obvious about it. Did this mean that she had never disappointed James? Did he still hold onto feelings for her?

No, that couldn't be true. The more probable explanation was that James had simply enjoyed tormenting her. He knew that she would never agree to date him; that was why he pestered her about it. In reality, he couldn't have truly cared about her. No, he didn't like her, especially not anymore. That would be absurd.

Pretending as if the thought of James having a crush on her never crossed her mind, Lily commented, "Well, you're lucky."

"Why do you say that?"

"Being disappointed like that isn't any fun."

James was about to respond, but a loud crashing noise from a nearby corridor caught both of their attentions. With wands out, James and Lily hurried toward the direction of the noise. They immediately saw what had made the noise. A knight's armor had crashed to the floor.

"Weird," Lily stated.

"I'll say," James said. "Someone or something must have knocked into this. There are spells on them so that a light bump won't knock it out of place.

"Probably just someone sneaking out of bed," she said.

"Yeah," James replied, lingering for a moment. "Probably."

"Filch will have heard that," Lily stated, "He'll be here soon."

"We should probably get out of here before he comes," James said.

"Why? We're Head Girl and Boy, we won't get in trouble for being out at night. We're just doing rounds."

"Yeah, but Filch is opposed to any student being out of bed, including us. And he hates me enough as it is. He'd probably try and blame this on you and me," he replied.

"That's just stupid."

"Want to bet?" James asked.

"Okay, fine, let's go," Lily said in a hurried voice.

"Come on," he whispered. He grabbed onto Lily's hand and led her out of the corridor. They were moving at a run and Lily had no idea where James was dragging her.

Suddenly, they stopped running and James let go of Lily's hand. He looked somewhat flustered as he let go of it. Lily felt a bit embarrassed herself. She hadn't even realized that James had been holding onto her hand during their pursuit to get away. Oddly enough, it didn't feel weird.

"Okay," James finally said, taking deep breaths as he spoke. "We should be fine now. Filch can't blame it on us."

"Yeah, right," Lily said, also breathing heavily. "Just one thing; where are we?"

James put his hands on his knees to steady himself for a moment. He then looked up and searched for a familiar sign. "Um, well…"

"You don't know?" she furiously asked.

"Of course I know," he bluffed.

"Then where are we?"

"Just give me a minute," he barked. He started to wander down the hallway, Lily close at his heel. He then began to pace in the opposite direction. Every now and then he let out a small "oh" or "hmm" but didn't say anything concrete.

"James, come on," Lily whined. "I thought that you and you're little friends explored the castle all the time. Or was that just some lie to get people to like you?"

"It's not a lie," he snapped. "It's just, well, it's a big castle. You need to be patient."

Just then, they heard a noise behind a painting of a Wizard dressed in scarlet robes. Lily and James locked eyes and both of their hearts stopped. Luckily, James was thinking ahead and grabbed Lily's hand once again. He whispered "Alohomora" as he tapped the handle of a door. He and Lily instantly went inside.

They were just in time too because at that moment Professor McGonagall came out wearing her nightgown. She was waving her wand in front of her and sternly said, "Who's there?"

After several minutes of wandering the corridor, McGonagall muttered something about hearing things and then went back inside the portrait hole.

James and Lily emerged from their hiding place and both let out a deep sigh of relief. "I remember where we are," he stated. "Outside the teachers' sleeping corridor."

"I'm so glad that you remembered _now_, after McGonagall almost caught us here," Lily replied. She shook her head and then said, "Let's just go back to Gryffindor."

"Good idea."

As they headed back, Lily couldn't believe that they somehow managed to escape that situation. If McGonagall had seen them in the teachers' corridor, she would have taken off points from her own House and given them each a week's worth of detention. Lily didn't even know how they had managed to get into that corridor, which usually went unnoticed by students.

"That was close," James finally said after nearly five minutes of silence.

"Too close," she agreed.

"But hey, you learn something new everyday," he replied, looking on the bright side of things. "Who knew that McGonagall wears a hairnet to bed?"

"James, this isn't funny," Lily scolded. "Don't you realize what she would have done to us if she had caught us? This whole thing was such a mistake. If we had just stayed and waited for Filch, we never would have had such a close call."

"But we didn't get caught," he reminded her.

"We almost did though!" Lily exclaimed. "How do you live like this? I've been friends with you for like a month and we've already snuck off to the kitchens, ran away from Filch, and almost get caught in the teachers' private corridor!"

"You've had fun though, right?" he asked.

"More like a panic attack!"

"Lily, calm down, we didn't get caught. There's nothing to worry about," James reassured her.

"I can't help it," she replied.

"Just take a deep breath and try to relax," he instructed.

Lily leaned against the wall, stopping their pace for a moment. They weren't far from the Gryffindor common room, but she wanted to compose herself before entering the room; who knew how many other students would still be awake.

"Deep breaths," James repeated. He took a couple steps closer to Lily. He rested the palm of his hand against the wall next to her head and stared down at her.

Lily's stomach filled with butterflies again. She couldn't relax at all. If anything she felt more stressed than before. Her nerves felt shot; he was so close to her.

"Lily, you're not relaxing," he stated.

She didn't say anything more for a minute. Finally, she looked into his hazel eyes and admitted, "I can't when you're this close."

"I'm not going to hurt you."

"I know," she replied, still staring into his eyes.

James smiled down at her, but didn't move away. She could feel his breath against her forehead and it made her heart race even faster. It was no longer that nervous, panic-stricken from breaking the rules heart rate though. This was something different.

A second later, their lips touched. It was like an explosion of energy had just passed between them, wrapping itself into every possible corner of her body. She felt a rush of emotions flood her heart, which had subdued its pounding but still felt differently than normal. Lily began to melt into the wall, sinking a few inches lower. James followed though and their lips never parted.

Then, all of a sudden, Lily froze. Her frigid stature made James stop as well and he immediately pulled away from her. They both stared at each other, neither knowing what to say or how to explain what had just happened.

Lily could feel her face redden and she was sure that her skin matched her deep red hair. "I, I have to go," she stammered before running toward Gryffindor, leaving James alone in the corridor.

Even though she was gone and he was alone, James mumbled, "Me too," before departing the scene.

...

**Authors Note 2:** Thanks for reading everyone. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. They finally kissed, yay! Anyways, please review. Reviews equal faster updates!


	8. Revelations

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter or any of the other characters that are in the Harry Potter books

**Author's Note: **Thanks so much to LilyandJamesLover, pippapear, carrymeaway, Mrs.Hermione J. Weasley, marauderette92, Blue-Eyed Chica, lilylurvesjamsie, xSecretEvansx, WhtChoc, BlAcKdAuGhTeR, Expectance, redglasses, monse evans, me, snaplappl21, opungo, tasha27, Romancing Hogwarts x3, Grace Potter Evans, emnic, lqharbaugh101, SingStarling, and koolkatkt123 for reviewing!

...

Lily bolted through the portrait hole, flew past the common room, and ran straight up the stairs to her dormitory. Both Libby and Camilla had yelled in her direction from the common room, but Lily didn't care. She didn't want them to see her now; she didn't want anyone to see her. All she wanted was peace and quiet. She needed time to think things through. Lily began to nervously pace the room, sweating forming at her brow.

She had just been kissing James Potter. What the fuck? This was James Potter here! She had done the thing that she had sworn to herself (and to him) that would never happen in a million years. And so she repeated, aloud this time, "What the fuck?"

Why did he have to kiss her? Why was he such a bloody git! Better yet, why hadn't she seen this coming? Of course that's why he befriended her; it was his goal all along. She could see him now, plotting it with Sirius, Remus, and Peter. The four of them probably huddled up and decided that if James started to be friends with her, he could easily gain her trust and then without any prior warning, he would launch and kiss her. God she was such a fool!

Then she froze. With her mind going at warp speed, she had almost overlooked the fact that James, the bloody bastard that he was, was most definitely going to blab about what just happened to his friends. And once that happened, the entire school was sure to know! She would be humiliated. She had a reputation to uphold and didn't want one stupid kiss from James to ruin it all.

Not knowing what else to do, Lily grabbed a piece of parchment and scribbled a note to James, which read, "James, please don't tell anyone what happened tonight. We need to talk about it first. Lily." As if on cue, her owl flew to window and tapped on the glass. Lily tied the note to the owl's leg and sent it off; she could only hope that it reached James in time. Otherwise, life as she knew it would be over.

Just as Lily closed the window, Camilla and Libby burst into the dormitory. "Lily, what's going on?" Libby asked.

"Yeah, you just like ran for it," Camilla added.

"I, I think I'm coming down with something," Lily quickly lied. "And well, I thought that, you know, I had to throw up and didn't want the entire common room to see."

Camilla made a look of disgust and said, "I see, well thanks then."

"Are you okay?" Libby asked.

"Um, yeah, I think I'll be fine," Lily replied.

"It's probably from hanging out with Potter," Camilla bitterly stated. She always was able to relate anything bad back to James, anything at all. Once, during their fifth year, Camilla even managed to relate the fact that it was cold and windy outside to James Potter being an asshole.

"Yeah, probably," Lily squealed. For once in Camilla's life, she was right about James Potter being the cause. However, Lily would never admit it.

"Never mind Potter," Libby said. "Should we be writing to Alexander, telling him that his new girlfriend isn't feeling well and he should come over and cheer you up?"

Oh crap. Lily had completely forgotten that Camilla and Libby still didn't know that she had rejected Alexander's offer. It seemed like ages ago too, not just hours. She really didn't want to deal with this now, not with James Potter still flooding her mind.

"It didn't work out," she quickly said.

"What? Why?" both girls exclaimed at once.

Lily jumped before replying, "I said no."

"Okay, you must be sick," Camilla stated. "You've liked him for ages, what happened?"

"I don't know," Lily admitted. "I just don't see myself with him."

"But why not? He's perfect!" Libby said.

Wanting to put an end to all of this, Lily said, "Guys, can we talk about this tomorrow? I really don't feel well and just want to go to bed." However, that was far from the truth. She knew that she wouldn't be able to sleep a wink that night.

"I'm sure if you talk to Alexander and just tell him you weren't feeling well, he'll understand and then you can date him," Camilla replied, ignoring Lily's request for peace and silence.

"No!" Lily exclaimed. "I'm not dating him, I don't want to date him. It's not this stupid sickness either! I don't like him anymore!"

Her outburst shut her friends up at once. Lily hardly ever yelled, at least not at them. In fact, the only time that they had ever seen her this frustrated was when she lost Severus Snape as a friend, whom, although they didn't see each other often during school, had been one of Lily's closest friends during the summer holidays.

Lily lied down on her bed and stared at the ceiling. She didn't say another word to her friends and was quite relieved when she heard them exit and the door shut tightly behind them. She knew that she had been unreasonable with them and if their roles were reversed, she probably would have behaved exactly the same as them. However, she was still angry that they kept on badgering her about Alexander, who she also felt bad for.

This was not a good thing, not at all. James had kissed her, Alexander probably hated her, and she had just been very rude to her best friends. Could it get any worse?

This was all James's fault, she concluded. He was the one that started to talk during rounds. He made the first move to be friends, not her. Then he made her wait in a stupid broom closet to overhear the Slytherins talking. Therefore, he initiated that moment between, not her. Next, he kissed her! It was all his fault.

The worst of it though is that it was also the cause of the problems between her and Alexander too. If she hadn't had that stupid, seemingly insignificant moment with James, she would have never hesitated with Alexander. Once again, the blame was with James, not her.

Of course, he also caused the problems with her and her best friends. He was the one that ruined things with Alexander, which caused Lily to snap at Libby and Camilla. James was also the one that dated Camilla just to get closer to Lily, making Camilla hate him. If he hadn't done that, Lily would be able to confide this information with them, but no. James had to ruin it all and now Lily couldn't talk to anyone about her problems. He was such an idiot, she couldn't stand him.

Why did he have to kiss her?

Lily closed her eyes and let her mind drift back to that kiss. She could still taste his salty lips against hers and smell his hot breath against her skin. She could perfectly imagine his arms draped around her, his light touch against her robes. This kiss was soft, not what she had expected at all. From his outward appearance, she would have guessed that he would be a rough, need to be in control kisser. However, it was gentle, caring even. It was a good kiss.

It was such a good kiss that it brought tingles up and down her body. She was convinced that it was the kiss, not the boy. She was sure of it. James was just a good kisser. There was nothing more than that. It was one stupid, simple kiss. It wasn't the end of the world.

Still, why did he have to kiss her?

She let out a groan of frustration, clenched her fists into tight balls and slammed them down against the bed. Why did he have to kiss her? Why? Why did James Potter have to make everything complicated?

Trying to relax herself, Lily began to take deep breaths in and out. She needed her nerves to calm down. She couldn't be this much of a mess when the rest of her roommate came back. She didn't want anyone to see her lose control, especially over something that she couldn't even talk about.

After ten minutes of taking deep breaths and staring at the ceiling, Lily finally felt calm enough to try and at least pretend to sleep. She hopped out of bed, put on her nightgown, brushed her teeth and then snuggled beneath her covers. She closed her eyes, but knew that she wasn't anywhere close to sleep. It didn't matter though, as long as her eyes were shut, her roommates wouldn't question anything. All that mattered was looking calm.

An instant later, Lily's eyes flashed open and she sat up straight in bed. She let out a sharp gasp and could feel her nervousness returning. This couldn't be right, it just couldn't. She couldn't have been the one to initiate the kiss, could she?

Oh no, oh no. The more and more Lily thought about it, the more she began to question who had started the kiss. She pictured it once more in her mind; she was leaning against the wall and James was leaning against the wall with his forearm, not far from her face. Then she told him that she couldn't relax with him so close, he replied that she shouldn't be scared, and she said she wasn't. Then the kiss happened and this is where it became fuzzy.

Lily tightly shut her eyes, trying her best to block out anything else. She could see his eyes, peering down at her. They looked so soft and sincere… they wanted her to kiss him.

Oh no, oh no! It was true. The worst had happened. She had been the one to initiate the kiss! She remembered it perfectly. He had a look in his eye and his lips looked so desirable. Then, she had straightened up, stood on her toes, and brought her lips to his.

Lily was awake for hours after her four roommates went to sleep. She couldn't stop thinking about James and why she had kissed him. In each explanation that her mind could generate, Lily found herself more and more doubtful. It was no use. There was no good reason for kissing James Potter. In fact, the most believable explanation was that Lily was feeling desperate after rejecting Alexander, however, Lily didn't buy it.

By two o'clock, Lily still hadn't fallen asleep. She was bored and tired of thinking about James so she quietly grabbed a magazine and tiptoed down the stairs to the common room. This way, she could read by the fireplace without disturbing anyone.

Unfortunately, Lily hadn't completely thought out her plan. Once she reached the bottom step, a loud creaking noise sounded and alerted the only other student awake in Gryffindor, James Potter. He looked up from his spot on the couch near the fireplace and smiled at her.

Now Lily had two choices: she could go over and talk to him or she could make a dash up the stairs and pretend that she never saw him. She was leaning toward the latter, but unfortunately James said "hello" to her before she follow through.

"James," she said, "Hi."

"I didn't say anything," he suddenly burst out, as if he had been waiting for weeks to tell her.

A wave of relief washed over her and she thanked him.

"So, um, you wanted to talk about, er, um, it," James managed to spit out, eyeing her as he spoke.

"You know, I'm so tired, now's not a great time," she lied.

"Then why did you come downstairs?" he skeptically questioned.

"I, I," Lily stuttered. "I don't know, I must have been sleepwalking."

"Sleepwalking?" James doubtfully asked.

"Yes," she insisted. "People do sleepwalk, you know."

"I know, but you're very much awake," he stated.

"Since when have you been an expert on sleepwalking," she snapped. She really didn't want to deal with this right now. She needed an escape. She really should have made a run for it when she could have.

"Fine, fine," he said, putting his hands up in self-defense.

They were both silent for a moment. James sat on the couch and nervously bit the side of his lip. Lily, who was still standing, shifted her weight from side to side. They didn't look at each other, except for the occasional glance to see if the other was looking.

Finally, Lily broke the ice by saying, "Let's just pretend it never happened."

"What?"

"Yeah, you know, just pretend. No one else has to know. It was nothing anyway, right? I mean, it meant nothing to me and it meant nothing to you. So let's just pretend it never happened," she explained.

"Um, right," he said.

"Okay, so we have a deal then," Lily reiterated. "It never happened, nothing has ever happened."

"Never happened," he agreed.

"Good," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Night."

"It never happened," she said from the stairs.

"Never," he called after her.

The only problem was that they both knew it happened and neither of them was willing to forget just yet.

...

**Author's Note 2: **Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it; a little more inside Lily's thought process than the other chapters have been. Let me know what you think! And as always, more reviews have a tendency to lead to faster updates!


	9. Taking the Blame

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter or any of the other characters that are in the Harry Potter books. J. K. Rowling does, like everyone already knows.

**Author's Note: **Thanks to BlAcKdAuGhTeR, Romancing Hogwarts x3, opungo, pippapear, me, koolkatkt123, tasha27, Blue-Eyed Chica, Expectance, Flamepaw, snaplappl21, lqharbaugh101, carrymeaway, IvyClimbing, siriusforeva, redglasses, Magical Singer Gal and Grace Potter Evans for reviewing! And now on to the next the chapter, hope you enjoyed the speedy update!

...

The following morning was by far one of the worst in Lily's life. Libby and Camilla were still being cautious around her, not wanting another repeat of last night. They left for breakfast without her, muttered a sad goodbye as they headed out the door. Lily knew she deserved it, but it still was very hurtful. It felt strange too; this was the first time in Lily's life when she hadn't been invited to go somewhere with a group of her friends, even to something as little as breakfast.

She waited ten minutes before exiting the dorm, not wanting the entire school to know that they had intentionally left without her. This way it would look more like she had been running late.

However, once she reached the common room, she had wished that she had waited another five minutes. Just as she reached the portrait hole, James Potter appeared right behind her.

"Lily," he calmly said once they both had set feet onto the castle floor.

"Hello."

"Going to the Great Hall?" he asked.

"Um, yes, are you?"

"Yeah," he replied. "I can't believe I'm running this late though. I overslept this morning and only woke up when Sirius smacked me. Apparently they had tried just about everything else, but it didn't work."

Lily wondered why James was telling her this useless information. She didn't care that he was a heavy sleeper. All that she could think about was kissing him… well, not now, obviously. She was thinking about their prior kiss, right? Certainly not about what it would be like again. One kiss from James Potter was enough; she certainly didn't need another, or want, one more.

"Oye, Lily," James said, waving his hand in front of her face, "Anybody home?"

"Sorry," she mumbled, "Must have spaced off."

"When do we have rounds next?" he asked.

"Oh, um, tomorrow night," she answered.

"Excellent," he said, a smile on his face.

"Why is that excellent," she snapped, her mind going straight to the kiss. Good god, James Potter wanted more! That must be it! Well, he wasn't going to get another kiss from her anytime soon, that's for sure. What a selfish pig!

"Because I have a lot of work to do tonight," he said, speaking to her as if she had grown an extra head.

"Oh, of course, right," Lily stammered.

"What'd you think I was going to say?"

"I don't know," she snapped.

James then grinned at her and said, "I thought that never happened."

Her eyes widened, how did he know she was thinking about that? Had her face turned a shade of pink? She didn't think so. Oh great, just great. Trying her best to regain her cool, Lily very calmly replied, "What never happened?"

"I see," he stated. "As long as we are both on the same page here."

Lily had a strange feeling that James's wasn't referring to the fact that they had both pretended not to know about the kiss. She was certain that meant they had both been thinking about it all night, but she didn't have a chance to say anything more because at that moment they had arrived at the Great Hall.

Lily quickly said bye to James and darted toward Camilla and Libby, who were seated next to a couple of sixth year girls named Mika and Nicole. Lily sat down with the girls and reached for a piece of toast.

"Were you just walking in with James Potter?" Mika asked. Both Mika and Nicole, along with the rest of the school, knew about her outward feelings towards James.

"Yeah, I saw him in the common room when we were both heading down here so we walked together," she quickly stated as she smeared jam across her toast.

"Why?" Camilla asked. "Why didn't you just ignore him?"

Inwardly, Lily was panicking. What was she suppose to say? She had tried a million times before to convince Camilla and Libby that James had changed, but neither of them wanted to hear it. She knew that Mika and Nicole liked James; they had always been friendly with him and the rest of the Marauders. Unfortunately, they were not Lily's best friends though.

"Well," Lily began, trying to think of anything to say, "It sets a bad example to younger students when they see the Head Girl and Boy fighting and hating each other. It's really just for show, you know? Every now and then we have to have a decent conversation in front of other students… McGonagall's orders."

"Oh," Libby stated, "I thought that you were just going to say that you had to talk about Head stuff, but okay, if that's what McGonagall is telling you to do."

"Yes, well, just talking about Head stuff would be too easy, wouldn't it," Lily remarked, more to herself than anyone else. Why didn't she think of that? It was much more believable than her lame story.

Twenty minutes later, Lily, Libby, and Camilla headed off to Charms with the Hufflepuffs, leaving Mika and Nicole who had Potions with the Slytherins. When they got to class, Alexander wasn't there yet, but James was. He was sitting near the back of the class, his three sidekicks in tow. Lily took her usual seat, the front right corner, with Camilla and Libby. She didn't look back at James at all, despite her urges to do so.

Alexander walked in a couple minutes later and looked straight at Lily. He didn't smile or make any acknowledgement of her presence. For the first time, he didn't even attempt to sit near her. This only made Lily feel worse; she hated when people were mad at her.

As Professor Flitwick began to lecture, Lily tried to think of some way to communicate with Alexander. She needed to make this right. She needed the opportunity to talk with him and explain it all.

Then it came to her; she could pass him a note, asking him to meet with her after class. James Potter had passed her notes all last year and wasn't caught once. Lily could certainly pull it off too.

She took out a piece of parchment and scribbled, "Meet me after class? Lily" on it and folded it in half. She snuck her wand out of her bag and glanced nervously at Professor Flitwick. Once she was sure that he couldn't see her, Lily tapped the note and it sailed away.

A couple minutes went by and a note suddenly appeared in front of her. She tried to hide her delight, but failed miserably. Her reaction to Alexander's "yes" didn't go unnoticed by Professor Flitwick, who stopped lecturing and approached Lily's desk.

"Miss Evans," he squeaked. "What have you got there?"

Damn it! She had never gotten caught during the hundreds of notes that James had passed her, so why now?

Nervously, she showed him the note. Luckily, it didn't say anything revealing. The one simple word could have meant anything at all.

"Passing notes in class," Professor Flitwick said, "I expected more from you, Miss Evans."

Then, from the back of the room, James spoke up and said, "Oh, Professor, I'm so sorry about this. It's all my fault. I passed Lily the note. Don't blame her."

Lily whipped her head back, her eyes were wide open. Why was James taking the blame for this? He had nothing to do with this, nothing at all.

"You, Mr. Potter?" Professor Flitwick asked, suspicion in his high-pitched voice. "You, out the blue, wrote the word 'yes' to Miss Evans?"

If James was surprised by this, he didn't let it show. "Yes, that's right, Professor. You see, before class had started, Lily asked me if she could borrow my Potions book. I wasn't sure if I had it with me or not, so I told her that I'd let her know later. And I just saw it so I wanted to say yes, she can borrow it."

Lily had to hand it to him, he was pretty decent at bullshitting. It wasn't the words he said, it was the way he went about it. He didn't stumble over any word nor hesitate to think of a last minute excuse. Instead, he held his head up high, emitting confidence.

Professor Flitwick seemed to be having an internal debate about what to do. After a moment, he finally said, "Potter, don't let it happen again. And five points from Gryffindor."

Lily turned back to look at James again, but he didn't glance her way. Instead, he went back to taking notes. Why did he do that? Those should have been her lost points, not his.

She wanted to talk to him about it, but couldn't find the time to do so. Once class was over, she needed to meet with Alexander. She couldn't just blow him off, especially when she had been the one to reject his offer for a date.

However, even if she hadn't planned to meet with Alexander, she still wouldn't have been able to talk to James. Once they were dismissed, he and the rest of the Marauders bolted from the classroom.

"You wanted to talk to me," Alexander said, confronting her outside the door.

"Yes," she sighed. "Alexander, I'm so sorry about yesterday."

A smug look overtook his face and he replied, "You know, Camilla said that you were bound to change your mind."

Lily cocked her head as she looked at him. Did she just hear that right? Why was Camilla telling him lies? This was just going to make the situation worse.

"Oh, wow, this is going to be awkward then," Lily began. "Alexander, I'm not changing my mind. I'm just really sorry about how it happened."

His smile dropped and his jaw hung open. "Oh," he dumbly stated.

"I'm really, really sorry."

"No, it's fine."

"No, it's not," she said. "I led you on and that was awful of me. But, in my defense, I didn't know that I didn't like you until that moment… and I really do wish that I did like you in that way, I just can't."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"Oh, damn it!" she scolded herself. "Merlin, I'm such a terrible person."

"No you're not," he reassured her.

"Yes I am."

"You're not," he replied. "Can you just tell me why though? I mean, was it something I did?"

"Oh, no," Lily exclaimed. "It's not you at all, it's me. And I'm not just saying that; I actually mean it. You're fantastic, it's just that, well, I don't know how to explain it."

"Is there another guy?" Alexander hesitantly questioned.

"No," she shouted, a little too enthusiastically. There was no other guy. There couldn't be another guy. Lily didn't like anyone at the moment, not a soul. And if she did, it certainly wouldn't be James Potter. No, they were friends, just friends.

"Okay," Alexander slowly replied. "Is that it then?"

"Um, yeah, I guess that's all I had to say," she answered. "We can still be friends though, right?"

He gave her a half smile and said, "Yeah, sure," before walking away.

As she continued to walk down the corridor, Lily came to the conclusion that her rejection Alexander wasn't nearly as bad as she had thought it was. He seemed fine; a little shocked, but fine. They hadn't even kissed yet anyway; they had only acted like friends. Besides, he was Alexander, one of the most sought after guys in school. If he wanted, he could easily get another girl to be his girlfriend.

She came to an abrupt stop when she saw James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter laughing hysterically in the hallway. She gave them a suspicious look and put her hands on her hips. However, none of them even seemed to notice her presence.

"What are you four up to?" she asked.

In unison, they all looked her way, large grins on their faces. "None of your business, Evans," Sirius answered.

"What did you do?" she asked again.

"It's really nothing, Lily," Remus replied.

"Yes, don't worry your pretty little head," James added.

"James, you are Head Boy," she reminded him. "You should be setting a good example and whatever you four did was clearly a violation of your responsibility."

"Lily, you have to live a little," he replied.

"Hey! You cannot possibly go back to insulting me," she exclaimed.

"I'm not," he said, still laughing. He then waved his friends off, telling them that he's meet them back up in the dormitory.

"Yes you are," she insisted. "Once again, you're implying that I have no fun."

"I'm not," he repeated. "I'm just telling you to lighten up a bit. Don't automatically think that I just pulled some prank or something. In case you haven't noticed, I don't do that anymore."

"Oh," she dumbly stated. "Then what were you doing?"

"Relax, Lily," he replied. "You don't need to know every step I take." Of course, the truth was that he and Sirius had just put actually oil into Snape's greasy hair, although the Marauders didn't really see any difference at all. It only made the prank that much more funny.

She contemplated his answer for a moment before giving in, "Fine."

"In that case, I had better get back to Gryffindor. Are you heading that way as well?"

"Yes," she replied. She paused and then asked, "James, why did you take the blame in Flitwick's class?"

"With the note passing?"

"Yeah," she replied. "Why did you do that? It was completely my fault."

He grinned at her and said, "You know, I have a reputation to uphold as well. I had to get in a little trouble or else everyone would think this whole Head Boy thing had soften my mischievous side."

"Are you serious?"

He laughed and answered, "Partly."

"Come on, tell me," she pleaded. "Why'd you do it?"

He smile disappeared for a moment and he glanced at her, as if he was unsure if he wanted to proceed. "Well, last year I must have sent you a hundred notes and you never got caught. It's really amazing that you didn't though... I was such an ass and didn't even think about what would happen if you had gotten caught. And, this is just a guess, but I assumed that you only got the idea from me. I thought I owed it to you to take the blame."

"You didn't have to."

"I know," he said.

"Thanks."

"Not a problem," he replied.

Once again, he grinned at her. There was something about his smile that made her smile as well. It was contagious. More than that, it was heart whelming. She could feel the butterflies again, just from that one smile.

They were back at the portrait hole in no time at all. Once inside, they said their goodbyes and went their separate ways.

Lily waved to her friends, but didn't join them. Instead, she walked straight up the stairs to the girls' dormitory. She flopped down her bed and stared at the ceiling. Her butterflies never left, they only grew into a larger feeling. Lily didn't know why this was happening to her. It shouldn't be happening to her. She couldn't be falling for James, could she?

She sat up and looked at the mirror attached to the wall. As she stared at her reflection, she realized that it was indeed true. She had fallen for James Potter.

...

**Author's Note 2:** Hope that you all enjoyed chapter nine. I've already started chapter ten and I'm pretty sure that you'll all enjoy it (hehe). But in order for me to post it, I'll need lots of reviews to inspire me. Hint, hint!


	10. Merpeople at Midnight

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter or any of the other characters that are in the Harry Potter books. J. K. Rowling does, like everyone already knows.

**Author's Note: **Thanks so much toBlue-Eyed Chica, Mormon-Girl13, snaplappl21, mrsjamessiriuspotter, opungo, siriusforeva, Flamepaw, snoopydude13, Final Heaven Zero, lqharbaugh101, KMK25, carrymeaway, WhtChoc, BlAcKdAuGhTeR, Mrs. Hermione J. Weasley, emnic, elizabethh24, LilyandJamesLover, Sheik's twin, Expectance, xSecretEvansx, Magical Singer Gal, Grace Potter Evans, Blair.The.Adorable, lilyfan06, and Romancing Hogwarts x3 for reviewing! You are all amazing!

...

The next evening, Lily found herself once again with James for rounds. She still couldn't shake off her newfound crush on James. That's all it was though, a silly crush. She had had crushes on tons of guys before and was sure that this one was no different. Give it a month and she would be laughing at the thought of liking James Potter.

"God I'm bored," James groaned. They had been walking the castle for half an hour and had only managed to make small talk. Plus, it was deader than Nearly Headless Nick! Not even the portraits were talkative.

"I'm sorry," Lily said, giving him a look that said 'that's nice, but deal with it.'

"Honestly, when did everyone start obeying the rules all of a sudden? Do you realize that in the past three weeks, we haven't seen anyone out of bed? Either students just aren't coming out at night or they are getting a lot better at sneaking around. Either way, I don't like it. I want to dock points off or something, anything to make this a little more exciting," James complained.

"You just want to dock points off the other houses so that we'll be in the lead," Lily stated.

"So? What's wrong with that," he said with a grin.

"James," she warned.

"I'm kidding Lily," James replied. "I'm just saying it's a really dull night, that's all."

"Well, make it more exciting then."

"How?"

"I don't know," she answered. "You're the adventurous one, not me. You can think of something exciting to do in a heartbeat."

He thought about it for a moment before asking, "Lily, have you ever seen a real mermaid?"

"No, no I haven't," she replied.

"Do you want to?"

"James, it's eleven o'clock at night," Lily stated, "Where on earth are we going to go see a mermaid? Or do you know of some secret room in the castle or something of that nature?"

"Something of that nature," he smirked. "So, do you want to?"

Lily thought about her options. She could stay here and bee the perfectly instated Head Girl and not go off into strange rooms. She could continue to walk with James in a mixture of silence and small talk, all while thinking about the fact that she had developed a crush on him. Or, she could go off on a small adventure with James, break a small school rule, and distract her mind.

"Okay, let's go," Lily said.

They walked down a few flights of stairs, to the end of a corridor, and then down another flight of stairs. Lily really wasn't sure where James was taking her. It seemed like they were heading toward the Great Hall, not a mysterious part of the castle that contained mermaids.

Once they passed the Great Hall and James stopped in front of the front doors, Lily's eyes opened twice their normal size. "James, where are we going?" she demanded.

"To go see the mermaids," he answered, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

"Are we going outside?" she exclaimed.

"Well, duh, where else would you see a mermaid?" James replied, giving her a strange look.

"But, but," she began, "We can't go outside at this hour!" Going into a special room inside the castle was one thing, but actually breaking school rules to go outdoors was another. If they were caught, she was certain that they would both receive a week's worth of detention and lose fifty points. This was crossing the line too much.

"What did you expect? Some sort of Muggle zoo?" he asked.

"Well, yes," she admitted.

He laughed and replied, "Like Dumbledore would ever put them locked up for everyone to see. They'd probably cause a riot."

"Well, we can't go out there," Lily stubbornly stated.

"Give me one good reason."

"It's against the rules!"

"I said a good reason," he replied, grinning at her.

"Well I'm not going."

"Fine, suit yourself," James said. "Don't know when else you'll ever see one though. They prefer the dark and don't come to the surface during the day. But whatever, miss out on this. I'm sure that looking at a picture of one in a book is just as good."

She sighed before saying, "Okay, fine. Let's go."

"Knew you'd come around," he stated, looking more than pleased with himself.

"But this is it," Lily informed him. "This is the very last time that I'm ever going to break a rule with you James Potter."

"Don't lie," he sweetly replied. "It's addicting. You're going to be breaking rules with me forever."

"Forever?" she doubtfully said.

"Forever," James answered, grinning at her.

Lily didn't say another word about "forever." It was an odd sense of wording, in her opinion, but she didn't want to press on. She was sure that they could spend hours debating "forever" and it really wasn't worth it.

As they left the castle, James performed a warming charm on their school robes, making the cold November air bearable. It was silent outside, not even Hagrid's hut was lit up. Above their heads, there was a crescent moon and quite a few stars.

They walked the path for a while, but then drifted toward the lake. Lily and James sat beneath the beech tree and looked out. Lily didn't see anything and she was quite skeptical of it all. She knew that mermaids existed in the lake, but had never seen one. Was James pulling her leg or were they actually there?

Nearly five minutes had gone by and Lily had had enough. "James, I don't see anything."

"You have to be patient," he responded. "They'll come out. A couple of them really like showing off for the other mermaids and they'll do flips up in the air."

"How do you know all this?"

"I've probably seen it ten or so times," James answered.

"How do you never get caught?"

"I have my ways."

"Any chance that you'll tell me what those ways are?"

"Someday," he replied. "Not now though."

"When? The very last day of school?" she asked, lightly chuckling.

"Only if you're good," he joked.

Just then, Lily heard a splash. She snapped her head away from James and toward the lake. She couldn't see anything out there; the mermaid had dived into the water and hadn't resurfaced yet.

"Another one will come up soon enough. They're always trying to show off for one another," James said.

Sure enough, a mermaid suddenly appeared in front of her eyes. From the moon and starlight, Lily could just barely make out the mermaid's bright red hair and shiny tail. She was floating on the surface, just observing the scenery. Lily then heard a very soft, strange noise coming from the lake and realized that it must be Mermish, the language of the merpeople.

Then, out of nowhere, the mermaid shot straight up into the air. She flipped twice while airborne before diving deep down into the lake. Lily heard Mermish again; it lasted for several minutes this time. She glanced over at James; he was still staring at the lake. Following his cue, Lily returned her eyes to the lake. It was just in time too. The Mermish stopped and all of a sudden more merpeople appeared. The males, all whom had long beards, varying in color from silver and red, were floating on the surface. Then, the mermaids shot up and began to do flips again. It was a never-ending show; just when one dove beneath the water, another popped up.

After nearly half an hour of watching the mermaids flip in the air, the merpeople slowly drifted back down to their underwater village. This prompted James to get to his feet. He held out his hand, which Lily graciously took, and propped her up. He dropped her hand immediately after though. Normally, Lily wouldn't have even paid attention to that detail, but it was hard for her not to be disappointed.

As they began their long walk back to the castle, Lily said, "Wow, that was incredible. Thanks for convincing me to go along."

"It never gets boring," he replied.

"Do you think that they knew we were watching?" she asked.

"Of course," James answered. "Merpeople are extremely intelligent. I don't speak Mermish, but I wouldn't doubt it if they had been discussing whether or not to proceed with their nightly fun since we were there. Luckily, they deemed us innocent enough to watch."

"Innocent enough?"

"Normally, they all carry spears of some sort for protection," he replied. "My guess is that's the reason why I've only seen mermaids jump in the air and not mermen. I'm assuming that the mermen still had their spears in their hands, just in case anything happened."

"You sure know a lot about merpeople," Lily stated.

James shrugged his shoulders and said, "I suppose so."

Unable to shake off the night's events, Lily ranted on again, saying, "Seriously though James, that was probably one of the best things I've seen in a while. I'm still in awe about just how cool it is that I saw merpeople."

"It's nothing, really."

"How can you say that?"

"Okay, it's amazing, I know," he laughed.

Just then, Lily heard a noise coming from the lake. She grabbed James's hand and pulled him after her, toward the noise. Once at the edge, they saw a brief image of a tail sticking up above the water. Apparently, the show wasn't completely over. However, they knew that they couldn't stay any longer; they had to get back up to the castle.

"Um, Lily," James said.

"What?"

James looked from her face down to her hand, which was still clutching his! Lily couldn't believe it. She hadn't even noticed that she never let it go. She felt so embarrassed.

"Sorry," she exclaimed.

He laughed before saying, "It's okay." James didn't look away from her though. Instead, he looked deeply into her emerald eyes. Lily felt the butterflies return to her stomach and her heart raced.

"Are we still pretending that it never happened?" James softly asked, referring to their kiss.

"Yes," she answered.

"Why's that again?"

"Because it was wrong."

"Why is it so wrong?"

"I can't kiss you."

"Why not?"

"I just can't."

They were inching closer and closer while they spoke, never taking their eyes off on another. Now, James was only inches away from her face. She could see every inch of his flawless face; his lips, his eyes, everything.

"We have a small problem then," he huskily said.

She could feel his breath against her skin. "What's that?"

"I can't stop thinking about it," he whispered.

"Me neither."

He leaned the rest of the way forward and touched his lips to hers. Lily felt an instant warmth spread over her body and she relaxed into James. Her butterflies disappeared and her heart rate slowed back down to normal. It was as if, with James's strong arms wrapped around her petite body, she felt safe and comfortable.

She felt a slight tug at her lower lip and immediately separated her lips, allowing her kiss with James to deepen. Just standing there with her arms draped across the back of his neck, kissing him, felt not only wonderful and exciting, but also natural.

Her mind getting the better of her, Lily suddenly pulled away. She was breathing deeply and staring directly at James. He stared back at her, also heavily breathing.

"James, we can't," she said, lightly shaking her head.

"I know," he stated, not taking his eyes off her.

"We just can't," she continued, as if she hadn't heard him. "It's wrong and it can't happen again. Twice is already two times too many."

"I know," he repeated, louder this time.

She stopped talking and stared at him in shock, did she hear him correctly? "You know?"

"Yes."

"Then why did you?" she asked, her heart racing again.

"I don't know," James replied, running his hand through his jet-black hair. "I don't know."

"Well, don't do it again," she exclaimed.

"I didn't see you stopping it," he fought back.

"I, I…" she began, but was unable to say anything more. The truth was that there was nothing to say. He was right. She could have instantly pulled away, but she didn't. She allowed the kiss to continue, for the second time. "It's just too complicated."

"What's so complicated?" James snapped.

"I can't betray Camilla like that," Lily explained. "It would crush her and she's my best friend."

"If she's your best friend, I'm sure she can get over it," he stated.

"And what about my reputation?" Lily went on. "James, half the school still thinks that I hate you. And what would everyone say if I was suddenly kissing you? No one would take us seriously as Head Boy and Girl. We'd lose all respect from our professors and from our peers. I have worked too hard to get this position and I won't let anything ruin it for me."

"Reputation? That's what you care about?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed. "I, unlike you, have a perfect record. But mostly I can't do this because of Camilla. She would be heartbroken. And I don't care what you say, she's not over it."

"Okay," he softly said, sounding defeated.

"James."

"Yeah?"

"It's not that I don't want to," Lily admitted, the words spilling out of her before she could even process their meaning. In a way, she was admitting the truth to herself more than to James. This wasn't just a crush.

Lily Evans had just fallen head over heels for James Potter.

...

**Author's Note 2: **Hope that you all liked it! Now do me a favor and review!


	11. Snow Angels

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter or any of the other characters that are in the Harry Potter books. J. K. Rowling does, like everyone already knows.

**Author's Note: **Thanks so much to Expectance, opungo, monse evans, Flamepaw, CrazzyD', pippapear, tasha27, snoopydude13, lqharbaugh101, Magical Singer Gal, LilyandJamesLover, MrsJamesSirirusPotter, Romancing Hogwarts x3, Blue-Eyed Chica, siriusforeva, Blair.The.Adorable, snaplappl21, KMK25, heart11broken, carrymeaway, BlAcKdAuGhTeR, bananaslugg, Raynabow, hpotterfan2047, Ann, TaylorxxSue, and lilyfan06 for reviewing! It means so much to me!

...

The following week was difficult for Lily. Everywhere she went, she seemed to run into James. Normally, this wouldn't be such a bad thing. However, now the truth was out. Lily knew that he liked her and he knew that she liked him. Their last exchange was pure evidence towards it. There was no escaping what she had said. The problem was that they could still not be together. It just didn't seem possible.

To make matters worse, every time that Lily even attempted to say anything good about James, Camilla shut her down. She simply refused to hear that James had changed. Her mind had been made up about James three years ago and she wasn't budging. Libby, who also didn't want to upset Camilla, wasn't any help to Lily either. If it was something good about James, she didn't want to hear it. She didn't want to turn against Camilla. Apparently, it was bad enough that Lily was forced to spend time with James.

No, Lily could never tell her best friends about her feelings for James. She was just going to have to wait for it to pass. There was no other way around it. She valued her friendship more than being with James.

It wasn't easy to do though. There was something about James that was different than any other boy she had ever liked. He was fun and spontaneous, which Lily needed in her life. She needed that extra push. He also knew how to give it right back to her and tell her when she had stepped over the line. Lily couldn't imagine any of her previous boyfriends or crushes muttering single word that insulted her.

The only way to get over James would be not to see him anymore. However, that proved to be quite difficult. She had class with him everyday and they had Head responsibilities together. Normally, this wouldn't be too bad; they would spend alone time together for perhaps one or two hours a couple times a week.

This week, however, was different than the rest. Instead of choosing their own partners in Potions, Professor Slughorn chose for them, informing the class that they were seventh years and needed to work with different people to prepare them for their careers after Hogwarts. To Lily's disappointment, she had been paired with James. It had been awfully difficult to concentrate with him standing so close to her.

Additionally, as the winter months progressed and the snow began to fall, more and more students were coming down with colds, including four prefects. This meant that Lily and James had an extra evening of rounds in store for them.

That extra night of rounds for Lily and James, had of course, began ten minutes ago. For those ten minutes, Lily and James had walked in silence. Neither one of them knew what to say. At least in Potions they had an excuse to talk about the class. During rounds, however, they had nothing to discuss.

"James, talk to me," Lily finally said, not able to handle the silence any longer.

"What?"

"This is painful," she explained. "You and I both know that this isn't us being us. We usually have so much to say to each other, but tonight nothing. I don't like this."

"It's different," he muttered.

"No it's not, I don't want it to be different. So let's do something to entertain ourselves," she said. "Any suggestions?"

"I'm all out," James answered.

"You didn't even think about it," she stated.

"It's your turn to think of something fun," he countered, finally sounding more like himself. Before, he sounded completely out of it, as if he really didn't care that she was even standing next to him.

"How about we go outside and make snow angels?" Lily suggested. "There's fresh snow."

"You do realize that fresh snow means that we'll leave tracks," he informed her.

"I'm feeling risky tonight," she giggled.

Lily and James then made their way toward the front entrance and slipped, unnoticed, outside. James performed the warming charms are their school robes again and just for good measures, Lily performed a vanishing charm on their footprints. Of course, the vanishing charm did only last for a couple hours, but it would certainly give them plenty of time to play outdoors.

Once outside, their next task was to find the perfect location. They didn't want to go anywhere too close to the castle, just in case Filch happened to look out the window. After surveying the property, James declared that the best place would be the Quidditch Pitch. It was a pretty decent walk, but neither of them had any homework left to complete for tomorrow, so it really didn't matter how late they were out.

As soon as they arrived, Lily ran from the entrance toward the middle of the field. Following her actions, James chased after her. Lily grinned at him once they both reached their destination. She then plopped down and spread her arms high above her head, letting the snow trickle onto her hands. Lily waved her arms and legs in their proper directions, behaving just like a little kid on a snow day.

"Having fun?" James asked. He placed one leg on either side of her torso and beamed down at her.

Giggling, Lily clutched a chunk of snow in her hand and threw it up at him. However, her plan didn't work nearly as well as she had planned. All of the snow fell back on top of her, causing James to roar with laughter.

Not allowing the fallen snow to affect her mood, Lily laughed and said, "Get down here and make a snow angel."

James did as he was told. He took a large step away from Lily before carefully laying down in the powdery snow that lined the ground. He followed Lily's movement and made a snow angel of his own.

He then got up and jumped away from his snow angel, not wanting to disrupt it. Lily was still laying in the snow, her red hair sprawled out across the snow. "Come on, let's fill the field. It'll catch everyone by surprise tomorrow morning."

She held up her hand, which he took to hoist her to her feet. Laughing, she then ran to another spot on the field, James in tow. He was the first to plop down on the snow and complete his second snow angel. Lily remained standing, a grin across her face.

"As far as this whole snow angel making, I'm beating you," he informed her as he stood up. "I have two done and you only have one."

"Since when is this a contest?"

"Since now," he answered, running off to another section of the field.

Lily intently followed him. They both hit the ground and immediately began to flail their arms and legs, almost in unison. To Lily's disappointment, James got up before her. She scrambled to her feet, but instead of running to a new part of the field, she ran through James's perfect snow angel.

"Ruined snow angels don't count," she yelled to me, laughing hysterically as she continued to stomp all over the former snow angel.

James rushed back to see his work shattered. "You're cheating," he exclaimed.

She smiled and replied, "When you made this into a contest, you never set any rules."

"Well, in that case," James began as he scooped a small pile of snow into his hand and tossed it at Lily.

She let out a surprised shriek, but bent down and grabbed her own snowball to throw. She was too late though. James had already gathered more snow in his hand, run over to her, and dumped the snow over her body. In retaliation, Lily gathered even more snow in her hands and ran it across his messy hair.

This caused James to pick her up off her feet and throw her into a pile of the snow, tackling her to the ground. Lily laughed, unable to verbally protest. Instead, she clutched piles of snow and began to throw them wildly into the air, hoping that one would hit him. Once she realized that this tactic wasn't working, she sat up and tackled him into the snow.

Lily hadn't intended to land directly on top of him, but once there, she paused. He was smiling up at her, his hair flecked with white and she felt her heart swell. He stopped struggling as well, not even bothering to touch the snow by his sides.

Right there, in the darkness, Lily kissed James for a third time. His arms wrapped around her torso, not allowing her escape, even if she had wanted to. Lily put her hands down on either side of his head, steadying her balance as she continued to kiss him.

He lightly tugged at her bottom lip, causing her to part her lips. He ran his tongue along the outline of her barely parted lips, but didn't dare adventure any further. James kept the kiss tender, perfect under the moonlight.

Lily only parted from him to breathe. With the little light that they had, she could see their breaths; cloudy against the ice-cold air. She didn't lean in to kiss him again; instead she stared directly into his eyes. She couldn't read them, but sensed that just being there with him was all he could ever ask of her.

That is, until her mind caught up with her. Instead of making a big deal about the kiss though, Lily simply grinned at him and said, "I think I'm winning the snow angel competition now" before running off to make more snow angels.

James lightly shook his head, but got to his feet and followed her, yelling something about it not being over yet.

Lily's plan of ignoring their kiss worked. The rest of the evening was filled with their silly competition, neither of them worrying about the pressure of what to make of the kiss. They both knew that it shouldn't happen again, they both knew that they had agreed it wouldn't happen again. Yet, it did happen. Dwelling over it never worked out well though. It only caused tension and awkwardness, something that neither of them cared for.

After twenty more minutes of snow angels, in which James came out victorious, they both started to freeze. Although the heating charm that James had performed on their school robes did keep them warm, their hands, toes, and faces were taking a rough beating from the winter weather.

"Come on, we'll go to the Gryffindor locker room and warm up before going back to the castle," James said, leading Lily off the field.

Lily had never been inside the locker room before, but was pleasantly surprised by what she saw. It was decked out in gold and scarlet, Gryffindor's colors. Like a typical locker room, there were several showers, actual lockers, and narrow wooden benches. However, unlike most lockers, it didn't have any strong odors. In fact, it had sort of a clean linen smell to it.

"It's not much," he cheekily grinned.

"It's heated," she remarked.

"Very true," he replied. He then went over to what Lily presumed was his locker and began to rummage through it. She caught a quick glance inside and her eyes bulged. She didn't think it was possible for one locker to hold so many Quidditch books, clothes, and other miscellaneous items. "Want something dry to put on?"

"Um," she stuttered.

"It's all clean, I swear," James promised, as if reading her mind.

"Alright, if you have anything small enough," she graciously replied. Now that they were inside and away from the cold, she could feel just how soaked she really was.

James rummaged some more through his locker and ending up pulling a few things out. He tossed Lily a sweater and a pair of shorts with an elastic waist. "Sorry it'll be a bit big on you, it's the only thing in here that just might work though."

"Thanks," she replied and took the clothes to the bathroom stall with her. As James predicted, they were quite large on her. Luckily, Lily could roll the waist of the short up a few times, which seemed to make them fit better. The sweater was falling off of her as well, but it was warm so she didn't mind at all. It even smelled like James, which, although Lily didn't want to admit it, comforted her.

Once she exited the stall, she saw James sitting on the wooden bench, one leg on either side of it. He had also changed into different clothing and was now sporting a pair of khaki pants and a shirt with a "Chudly Cannons" logo on the front.

"Everything fit okay?" he asked.

She sat down next to him on the bench, crossed her legs and faced him. "Yes, thank you." Her hair had gotten wet from the snow and was now forming loose curls, a look that Lily hated but James saw nothing wrong with.

"Well, I had fun tonight," James announced. "Good suggestion."

"I do come up with a few good ones," she said, flashing him a mouthful of pearly white teeth.

"Yes and who would have thought that you would want to sneak out of the castle. I've got to say, Lily, if anyone had told me three months ago that you'd become rebellious and sneak out of the castle while on duty, I would have told them to book a room in St. Mungo's," James informed her.

"We all change," she replied, looking straight into his hazel eyes. "Some more than others."

"You think I've changed more than you?" he questioned.

"Well, yes."

"I don't think so," she replied. "You've stopped hexing people, actually started paying attention in class, and have even started to follow some rules."

"Yes," he began, "But you, well you've started to break the rules. And you went from hating me, to being friends with me, to…" he trailed off, looking away from her.

"To kissing you," she finished.

"To kissing me," he repeated.

"You finally gave me a reason to kiss you," she softly replied.

James put his hands down on the bench in front of him and leaned forward, kissing Lily's soft lips once again. Her legs dropped from being crossed to dangling on either side of the bench. Mirroring James, she placed her hands on the bench for support and leaned further into the kiss.

He pulled back from the kiss, but Lily didn't open her eyes. She didn't want that kiss to disappear yet. When she finally did let her eyes flutter open, she saw James patiently staring at her.

"I don't want to pretend anymore," he said.

"I wish it were that easy," she softly replied.

"What's so hard?" James asked, taking her hands in his. "What happens between you and me isn't anyone else's business."

Lily sighed and looked down at the ground. She didn't dare look at him now. She knew he was right, but at the same time couldn't shake off her initial dilemma about dating James. If only she could have the best of both worlds. She wished that she could date James at night, without anyone else knowing. That way, she could still be with him but not have to worry about her reputation or hurting Camilla. If only…

As she began to think about it more and more, she wondered why she couldn't have the best of both worlds? Why couldn't she only be with James at night, without anyone else knowing?

"James, what if we do keep what happens between you and me between you and me?" she slowly asked.

"That's what I was saying," he slowly replied.

"No, I mean, really just between us," she asserted. She had stood up now, pulling her hands out from underneath his. "What if we were together, but also not together? You know… like a secret?"

"Lily, are you insane?" he asked, giving her a strange look.

"No, hear me out," she said. "In public, we won't be together, together. Instead, we'll start to be friendlier and make it obvious that we've become friends. I'll talk to Camilla too and overtime, I'm sure that I convince her to at least tolerate you."

"Lily," James protested.

"I'm not done," she snapped. "But in reality, we will be continuing whatever we are now. That way we'll have the best of both worlds."

"Lily, we can't," he repeated. "I won't."

"Why not?"

"It's crazy, that's why," he answered, now standing up and pacing the room.

"What's one more secret to you?" Lily asked. "And it'll only be for a month or so, I promise."

"Lily…"

"Think about it," she insisted. "If we stop what we have now, everything will go back to being awkward. Then, before you know it, we won't even be speaking to each other. Why won't you give this a try?"

"Lily, I want to be with you," he reasonably said, "But this is crazy. We can't just meet up during rounds to be together."

"Okay, so we won't be technically together," she replied. "We'll just be continuing whatever this is between us now. Then, once the time is right, we can, you know, maybe take the next step."

"No, Lily, no."

"Were you or were you not the one who chased after me for two years?" she demanded. "Did you or did you not date my best friend just to get closer to me?"

"Well, yes," he admitted.

"And are you just going to give up this now?" Lily asked.

"No," he slowly said.

"Then why not?"

"Lily," he said, "Did you or did you not feel something different during that kiss? Something more than any other kiss you've ever had?"

"Yes," she answered, "But that's all the reason to do this."

"Why can't we be together in public too?" he demanded.

"I can't do that to Camilla," Lily exclaimed. "She's been one of my best friends since first year. I won't betray her by dating you. I can't do anything more until she is okay with the idea of you and me together."

"So sneaking off behind her back is a better solution?" James mocked.

"No," Lily snapped, then in a softer tone she added, "But I don't want to lose you either."

James stopped his pacing and stared at her. He could see her emerald eyes glistening and her hair was now almost as wild as his. She was the girl he had been in love with since fifth year and now she finally wanted him too.

"Okay," he finally said.

She softly smiled at him as she walked to his side. She leaned her head into his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. James kissed the top of her head as he put his arms around her.

"I promise it won't be long," she softly said.

"I hope not," he replied.

They stood with their arms around each other for a moment before Lily parted briefly and said, "James."

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

She then place her hands on either side of his face and pulled his lips down to meet hers, sealing their night with a kiss.

...

**Author's Note 2: **I hope that you all liked that chapter, did anyone see that one coming? Anyways, you all know the drill... more reviews mean a faster update!


	12. Spying Eyes

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter or any of the other characters that are in the Harry Potter books. J. K. Rowling does, like everyone already knows.

**Author's Note: **Thanks so much to lqharbaugh101, Flamepaw, carrymeaway, TaylorxxSue, Louina, emnic, Grace Potter Evans, marauderette92, opungo, pippapear, Expectance, Blue-Eyed-Chica, Romancing Hogwarts x3, snaplappl21, siriusforeva, Gemm, banny, mrsjamessiriuspotter, BlAcKdAuGhTeR, lilyfan06, tasha27, and GGHSMFREAK for reviewing! It means so much to me!

...

Hiding her relationship with James was not an easy task. There were countless times during that first week that she was dying to scream to Camilla and Libby that they were wrong about James. However, she always held her tongue and instead of agreeing with them that James was a jerk, simply ignored the conversation.

On top of that, she wanted to see James everyday, but was finding it difficult to be with him alone. They only had one night of rounds scheduled during that first week, which they took full advantage of. In fact, it had been their longest night of rounds yet. Lily didn't return back to her room until two o'clock in the morning.

Other than that, she rarely saw him. Sure they had classes together and could visually see each other during meals, but they couldn't interact together with arising suspicion. They almost managed to be partners in Potions class again, but at the last minute Camilla pulled Lily over to her station, saying that she wasn't going to let Lily suffer anymore because of James that day.

It was really getting very tiring. One night they decided that the best way to be alone with each other was to wait until the common room emptied itself from all other students. Any other night and it would have been fine and everyone would have gone off to bed by midnight. However, the following morning all of the fifth years had an extremely long Transfiguration essay due. This translated to none of them leaving the common room until one that morning. By that time, Lily and James were both tired and only managed to talk for twenty minutes.

One morning, while at breakfast, Lily's mind was drifting onto James once again. They finally had rounds together that evening and she hadn't been this excited about her Head Girl duty since she found out that she had gotten the position. Finally, at least two unobstructed hours with James.

"Ewe, Potter's looking at you again," Camilla suddenly said, waking Lily up from her daydream.

Lily looked over and sure enough he was there. He smiled once their eyes met, but then went back to eating his muffin. Lily watched as he laughed at something that Sirius had just said. He looked so happy and she adored it.

"He's got some nerve," Camilla continued.

"Maybe you should try to forgive and forget," Lily suddenly snapped, more forcefully than she had intended.

"What?"

Lily sighed and replied, "It was a while ago, Camilla. He was just a dumb kid and he's not the same."

"Yes he is."

"Camilla, I've spent countless hours with him, trust me, he's changed," said Lily.

"No he hasn't," Camilla stated. "He's only doing that to try and impress you Lily. That's what he does. He's a master at pretending to be someone he's not just to lead girls on. I swear to you, if you ever gave him the slightest notion that he won and could have you, he'd just go back to being the smug, arrogant bastard that he is."

There was no point in arguing; Camilla wasn't going to budge. There was nothing that Lily could say to stop the James Potter bashings. She had tried over and over again, but nothing seemed to work.

Luckily, Lily didn't have time to respond. At that moment, Libby said, "He's coming over here."

"Potter?" Camilla asked.

"Yeah."

Lily turned her head and saw him striding over. He had a light smile on his face as he said, "Hello Lily, Camilla, Libby."

"What do you want?" Camilla demanded.

James didn't seem fazed by Camilla's rudeness. He answered, "Actually, Lily, if you have a moment, I'd like a word."

"Of course," she stammered.

To clear the questioning looks from Camilla and Libby's faces, James added, "Head stuff" and smirked.

As they walked away from the table, Lily said, "James, I'm so sorry about them. They just can't comprehend that you've changed. And because of it they are so rude to you, I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault," he replied.

"But I still feel awful," Lily admitted. "Camilla just can't get over it, you know? It's stupid really, but since you were her first and only boyfriend, I suppose that she just feels a little bitter."

"So I'm guessing that the whole talking me up so they like me thing hasn't been working," James cut in.

"Not to plan," she replied, smiling at him.

"And if she never comes around?" he asked.

"She will, I'll make her come around," Lily answered.

"How?"

"I haven't gotten that far with my plan yet," she smirked.

"Slip some potion in her morning juice," James suggested.

"I'm not going to drug my best friend into liking you," she stated.

"Just a suggestion," he said, giving her a large grin.

Lily rolled her eyes but smiled. "So what exactly is this Head stuff that we are supposed to be discussing?" They had finally reached the Head's meeting room and Lily said the password. To her surprise, however, there was no one else in the room. Maybe they were the first to arrive.

"That was actually just a little white lie," James said. He pulled Lily into his arms and planted a kiss on her lips. "I've just been dying to do that."

"James, we're not supposed to be using this room to snog each other," she giggled.

"I know," he replied as he placed five light kisses on her lips. "But it makes it that much more fun."

"James," Lily said, still giggling like a school girl.

"Besides, who's going to catch us? We're the only ones with the password."

"James."

"I thought you liked breaking the rules now," he said.

"I do," she answered. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his face down to reach hers better. His lips were warm against hers and she could taste the strawberry jam from his toast.

Sometime between kisses, James managed to pick Lily up off her feet, which she had made easy by wrapping her legs around him, and escorted her to one of the plush chairs. She sat on his lap, her legs bent on either side of his lap. His arms were wrapped across her torso, moving up and down over her robes.

Instinctively, Lily ran her fingers through his messy hair. It was ironic; seeing him run his fingers through his hair made her want to kill him, but when she did it they both loved it. She then moved her hands back to his face, forming a perfect frame.

Once she pulled her lips away from his, James asked in a very grumpy tone, "Why are you stopping?"

"We have class," she answered.

"This is more fun than class," he whined.

She laughed and replied, "Yes, very true. But we have to go. Besides, we have rounds tonight so I'll see you then."

"And pick up where we left off?" he hopefully asked.

"You'll see," she answered while flashing him a big smile and slightly raising her eyebrows up and down.

At that, James burst out into laughter. "Are you trying to be suggestive?" he asked as they both straightened out their hair (which was hard for James to do) and left the Head's meeting room.

"Trying?" she defensively asked.

"Yes, trying," he clarified, before adding, "And failing miserably."

"I did not fail at that," Lily argued.

He laughed and replied, "You didn't see your face in the mirror. That was a pathetic eyebrow raise. Honestly, even Snivellus could probably do better!"

"James Potter," Lily exclaimed. "No making fun of me."

"But it's so easy," he remarked, successfully raising his eyebrows at her.

"That's exactly what I did," Lily said, pointing to his face.

"Oh no it's not, Lils," he replied with a laugh.

"Lils?" she asked.

"Do you not like it?" he nervously asked.

"I do," she answered, smirking at him. The only people who ever called her "Lils" were her mother and father. Not even Camilla and Libby called her that nickname. It was mostly because she had never cared for it. However, hearing it from James's lips was different. It rolled off his tongue and sounded natural.

What made it even more special though was knowing that so few people did call her that. It made it seem like he cared about her more, an idea that brought butterflies to her stomach. Just hearing him say it made her feel like a giddy thirteen-year-old girl with her first crush.

"Good," he said, "Now let's get to class before McGonagall transfigures the both of us into a pincushion."

Even more shocking than James pulling Lily out of breakfast for a morning kiss was the look that they received when they not only walked into class together, but also sat down next to each other. Lily was quite positive that Camilla and Libby were on the verge of a heart attack, but she didn't dare glance over in their direction. Just knowing that they were staring in awe at her was all that Lily could handle at the moment.

Even James's friends looked rather shocked. Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin were both gaping at the sight and Sirius Black gave James the thumbs up sign. Lily smirked at their reactions, but was relieved. The facial expression of James's best friends told her that he had kept his word and hadn't told a soul about their very private relationship.

The rest of the class seemed to be in awe as well. As far as the rest of the school was concerned, the only times that Lily Evans and James Potter spoke was during Head meetings. They were all still getting accustomed to Lily not yelling at James whenever he came near her. Seeing them come in together was just a huge shock. Even McGonagall looked surprised to see the Head Girl and Boy behaving more than civilized towards each other.

Once McGonagall overcame her shock, she began their lesson for the day. She instructed them all to turn their hedgehogs into a vase full of flowers. Lily watched James in awe; during his first try, the only mistake was that the flowers were quite prickly. On his second try, however, he had succeeded in transfiguring the hedgehog into a vase full of yellow lilies.

"Want one?" he asked, pulling one of the lilies out of the vase.

"Essence of hedgehog," she said, a smile forming at her lips. "It's tempting."

The rest of the lesson went on as expected; Lily correctly performed the transfiguration after her fifth try, some students couldn't even get it by the end of the class. Camilla and Libby were still quite unhappy to see Lily enjoying her time spent sitting next to James. However, the rest of the class overcame their shock after the first few minutes.

Afterwards, Lily said "goodbye" to James and they went their separate ways. Leaving together would just be too much for one day. They didn't want Camilla to quite literally, explode, which she nearly did once she met up with Lily outside of class. In Lily's defense though, she simply said that their imaginary Head meeting ran late, they arrived to class at the same time, and there weren't a lot of open seats left. As far as her having an enjoyable conversation, she informed Camilla and Libby that James wasn't too bad once you got to know him. At that, Libby rolled her eyes and Camilla made a loud huffing noise.

The remainder of the day seemed to drag on and on. Sitting through Potions, which Lily generally enjoyed, was like sitting through a double block of History of Magic. It just seemed to go by so slowly. Even dinner seemed to go by in slow motion. Lily and her friends generally sat in the Great Hall for nearly an hour to talk and eat, which always went by far quicker than they would have liked. However, today they finished in half an hour. When Lily glanced at her watch, she was in shock. She had thought that at least an hour would have passed.

In reality, she was just anxious for her Head duties to begin. She wanted to see James again. Maybe that was his plan this morning. Kissing her for that short period of time was clearly not enough and it got her riled up.

Finally, night fell and it was time for rounds. Lily walked over to where James was sitting with his fellow Marauders and smiled as she said, "Let's go James."

"We're in the middle of a game of chess," Peter whined.

James looked up at Lily and caught her eye. He then turned to Remus and said, "Take over for me, will you?"

"Of course," Remus answered as he all too eagerly dropped his Transfiguration book and instructed one of James's pieces to squash Peter's knight.

Once they left the common room and were in the secluded corridors of Hogwarts, James pulled out a yellow lily from his cloak pocket. "This is for you," he said, grinning at her.

"From class?" she laughed.

"Nope, there's not a single ounce of hedgehog in here," he answered. Seeing the questioning look across her face James added, "I transfigured it from one of the branches on a pine tree."

"Well, thank you," she replied as she brought it her nose and smelled its sweet scent.

"You're welcome."

"Who would have thought that James Potter would be one for romance," she stated, smiling sweetly at him.

"Who would have thought that Lily Evans would be one for snogging in the hallway," James said.

"What are you…?" she began, but was cut off.

At that moment James grabbed both of her hands in his and brought his lips to hers. As they broke apart, Lily smiled and slightly laughed before leaning in and kissing him again. He was right, who would have tagged Lily Evans as one to snog in the hallway. Yet here she was, kissing James in the middle of the empty corridor and loving it. It was strange how he did this to her. If he had been anyone else and had tried to pull that move, she surely would have pulled apart and hexed him. This was different though. Kissing James was exciting and worth every second.

Maybe it was the same for him as well. Maybe he wasn't actually the romantic type, but Lily brought it out in him. They were able to compliment each other so well, each prompting the other into doing things out of the ordinary.

As their kiss intensified, Lily could feel the cold stone from the corridor wall through her robes. Her hands rummaged through James's wild mess he called hair. He had one of his hands cupped around her face and when they broke apart for air, he tenderly touched her cheek and stared into her eyes.

They instantly went back to kissing and James moved his lips from hers, down her jawbone and stopped at her neck. Lily let out a small, very girlish, giggle and said, "James." It wasn't begging him to stop or even mocking his action. It had merely taken her for surprise.

…

Meanwhile, back in the Gryffindor common room, the remaining Marauders were in the exact position as when James and Lily had left their side. Remus and Peter were still playing chess; Peter was winning, but only by one move. Sirius, on the other hand, was sitting and watching the game, a glazed look across his face.

"Aren't you done yet?" he complained, emphasizing the 'yet.'

"No," both Remus and Peter snapped. Neither of the two boys dropped their gaze from the game.

"Well, are you going to be done anytime soon?" Sirius asked.

"No," they answered in unison.

"Well, I'm bored," Sirius complained again. "Wish Prongs didn't have stupid rounds again. He'd think of something to do or at least go down to the kitchens with me."

"Go by yourself," Remus suggested.

"That's no fun."

"Go down, grab a bunch of food and then bring it back here. By the time you get back Wormtail and I will be done with the game and we can do something fun," Remus said.

"Like what?" Sirius asked.

"Those first years look like they'd enjoy a nice show of fireworks in the common room," Peter answered. "And with no Head Girl here to stop us…"

"Excellent," Sirius agreed, grinning from ear to ear. "Good idea, Wormtail."

Peter turned a light shade of pink and even broke his eyes away from the game of chess to grin back at Sirius. He loved getting approval from his best friends, especially Sirius and James.

Sirius ran up to the boys' dormitory, rummaged through James's trunk for the invisibility cloak, and then left Gryffindor Tower. Luckily for him, a sixth year girl had just entered through the portrait hole so Sirius could easily sneak out without arising any suspicion.

While under the cloak, Sirius very quietly walked the corridors. He wondered if he would run into the Head Boy and Girl at all. It would be fun if he did; he could crash into suits of armor or talk in hushed voices. James would certainly know it was him at once, but Lily Evans would probably scream. Yes, it would be quite fun.

Sirius was tempted to go looking for them, but then decided otherwise. After seeing James and Lily walk into class together that day, it looked like his best friend was making real progress with the girl he loved. Sirius didn't want to ruin James's chances with Lily Evans. James had pined after her for too long and had tried too hard to impress her for Sirius to just ruin all of that. More so, James would probably hex him.

As he rounded the corner, Sirius suddenly heard a noise. Always being the curious one, he followed the sound. He cocked his head as he listened; it sounded like a girl. He took a few more steps forward. Yes, it was definitely a girl. She was giggling… it was a flirtatious giggle.

Now this he had to see. Who was this girl and who was the bloke she was with? He grinned, despite the fact that no one could see him. It would be bloody hilarious to use his invisibility to his advantage and scare the snogging couple. He'd definitely have a good story to share with the rest of the Marauders.

However, as Sirius came closer, his eyes widened to the size of grapefruits. He shook his head, closed his eyes, and then opened them once again. He had to be seeing things. It was the only explanation.

Taking a chance, Sirius opened his eyes again, one at a time. No, his mind was not playing tricks on him. He could recognize that untidy hair anywhere. It was James and Lily Evans, snogging in the corridor!

Sirius stood there, transfixed for a moment. He eyes were wide and his heart seemed to stop. He knew it was true, but he couldn't believe it. Seeing the two of them kissing like that seemed to make him immobile. It was like everyone slowing down to see the results of train wreck; no one actually likes seeing its gruesomeness, but everyone is drawn to it nonetheless.

Then Sirius heard Lily giggle and say, "Who knew being Head Girl was so much fun."

"Yes, being Head Boy certainly has its advantages," James replied, grinning at her before going back for another kiss.

That was enough for Sirius. He found his ability for mobility and ran off. As he continued down to the kitchens, Sirius came to the conclusion that this must have just happened. Somehow James had wooed Lily Evans that night, for the very first time. There was no other explanation.

Happy for his best friend, Sirius gathered food and headed back to the common room. He, Remus, and Peter followed through with their plan. They all shoved large amounts of food in their mouths and then gave the rest of Gryffindor Tower quite the fireworks show. A few first years screamed, a couple students shrieked in mere surprise, but most of the students clapped in excitement.

Once their masterpiece was over with, Sirius, Remus, and Peter went back to their dormitory. Sirius hadn't told his friends what he had seen. He figured he owed James that much; the glory of explaining it to them himself.

When James did arrive that night, an hour after he normally came back to the room, Sirius smiled happily at him. James said a simple hello to his friends and then went to change into his nightclothes and brush his teeth.

Once James returned from the bathroom, Sirius asked, "So, how were rounds tonight?"

James shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Alright, I guess."

Sirius stared at him for a moment, but didn't say anything. Instead, he pulled his covers up over his shoulders and turned to face the wall. Why was his best mate hiding information from him? Why wasn't he on cloud nine after kissing Lily Evans? He had pined after her for years. Why, now that his wildest dreams had come true, was he keeping it all a secret?

Sirius felt betrayed by this, but didn't say anything. If James didn't want to tell him, he must have had a damn good reason. Of course, Sirius was determined to find out what it was, but he didn't want to confront James about it. No, he would have to go to the other source of information. He would have to talk to Lily Evans.

...

**Author's Note 2: **Thanks so much for reading, I hope that you all liked this chapter! And mrsjamessiriuspotter there's your Sirius Black scene! You just had to be patient, he was going to make an appearance since I first thought of this story! Anyways, please review and tell me what you think. As always, reviews equal fast updates!


	13. Sirius Black & Kitchen Messes

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter.

**Author's Note: **Thanks to TaylorxxSue, Live.Laugh.Love37, snaplappl21, opungo, marauderette92, Flamepaw, siriusforeva, carrymeaway, anonymous992, Expectance, BlAcKdAuGhTeR, loppa, dracosbabygrl, JJ-000-JJ, lilyfan06, LBJ equals life, banny, Princess Sophie Potter, lqharbaugh101, pippapear, holabitches100, tasha27, Romancing Hogwarts x3, SugarHi Marauders, emnic, mrsjamessiriuspotter, and Raynabow for reviewing!

...

"What do you think he wants?" Lily nervously asked James. Professor Dumbledore had requested to see them in the Head's room. It was the first unannounced meeting that Lily and James had with him and Lily was getting very antsy about it.

"I don't know," James replied.

"Do you think he knows?"

"About us?" he asked.

"Yeah, I mean we have been neglecting our duties. Maybe he knows and he's going to revoke our Head badges!" Lily exclaimed.

"Lils, calm down," James laughed. "Just relax, he doesn't know anything. And we haven't been neglecting our duties. They've just taken longer to do, that's all."

"We've been sneaking out of the castle though," Lily exclaimed in a hushed voice.

"He doesn't know its been us," James reassured her.

"How do you know that?"

"I don't," he replied. "I'm just looking on the bright side of things. Besides, I need to keep you calm or else you'll explode and that would just be gross."

Lily glared at him and said, "Shut up."

By that time, they had arrived in front of the Head's room. Lily took two more calming breaths before James said the password and they entered the room. Dumbledore was already there. He had a pleasant look across his face and was currently snacking on a piece of toffee.

"Miss Evans, Mister Potter, thank you for seeing me on such a short notice," he exclaimed. "Toffee?"

They both declined and stared intently at their headmaster.

"Now you re probably wondering why I called the two of you in here," he said. "It has come to my attention that there have been several students sneaking out of the castle during the evenings."

"You don't say," Lily gasped, doing her best to sound surprised.

Dumbledore smiled at her and said, "Yes, Miss Evans, there have been. I just wanted to remind the two of you that it is your duty to report any students out of bed to Professor McGonagall, even if they are your friends."

"We haven't seen anything," James immediately stated.

"No, I didn't think so," Dumbledore began. He paused as he looked at the two students who sat in front of them. There was sparkle in his eye and slight smile forming at his lips. "I'm sure that neither of you have seen anything suspicious, but as Headmaster it is my responsibility to ensure parents that their children are not getting into any trouble. And as my Head students, I do depend on the two of you to help me carry out this… duty. But, alas, you haven't see anything."

"Nothing at all," Lily stated; her heart was pounding so hard that she thought it might dislodge itself.

"Very well," Dumbledore said, the smile still playing at his lips. "I will have Mr. Filch stand guard at the front entrance to the castle, just for extra protection… thought you two might want to know."

Once out of the Head's room and away from earshot, Lily looked at James and said, "He knows. He's knows its us and he didn't even punish us, can you believe it?"

"He doesn't know its us," James insisted.

"Yes he does!" Lily exclaimed. "Why else would he have told us that Filch would be guarding the door? I still can't believe he didn't do anything about it though."

"Or maybe he told us that so we wouldn't waste our own time standing there," he suggested.

"I don't think so," Lily insisted. "Dumbledore knows about us and he knows we've been sneaking off."

"Lily, he doesn't know anything," James repeated, for what seemed like the millionth time. He rolled his eyes at her. He wouldn't trade Lily in for anything or anyone in the world, but damn she certainly was paranoid at times.

Sensing James's annoyance in her, Lily sighed and said, "Okay, you're right."

"Thank you," he replied. "Now, I'm going to be late to my own Quidditch practice, but I will see you later, right?"

"Of course," she smiled. "We have rounds, remember?"

"Right," he said, still eyeing her. "I'll see you tonight." He then looked around the corridor and once he saw that it was empty, James leaned forward and placed a small kiss on Lily's lips.

"Bye," she said as he walked away.

Lily walked in a daze down the corridor and back toward Gryffindor Tower. Other than her minor outbreak thinking that Dumbledore had discovered her secret relationship with James, Lily was quite confident that no one else knew. All she had to do was convince Camilla and Libby that James was a changed man and she could see him whenever her heart desired. Until then, meeting with him in secret really wasn't horrible. In fact, it made it sort of exciting. They were always up to something new and it always took her breath away.

Aside from watching the merpeople, making snow angels, and sneaking off to the kitchens, James had also introduced Lily to the Forbidden Forest, midnight snowball fights (which Lily was convinced was just James's way of flirting with her), and strolls outside beneath the stars. It truly was incredible, not to mention amazing that they had never gotten caught. James was always careful to erase their tracks with a vanishing charm. More importantly though, Lily had had the time of her life. Being with James made studying with Alexander look like a detention.

With her mind on cloud nine, Lily hadn't even realized where she was walking, or rather whom she was walking into. With a large smack, she collided with Sirius Black, James's very best friend.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

"Its alright, Evans," Sirius began. "I was actually hoping that I'd run into sometime soon, alone."

This caught Lily off guard; what was he up to? "What is it?" she demanded. Her heart was racing again, although not it a good way.

"Come, let's take a walk," Sirius replied, leading the way to the castle grounds. Luckily, Lily did have her winter cloak with her, otherwise she was sure she would have frozen, even with a heating charm.

"Okay, what do you want?" Lily asked again. They were now away from everyone; the grounds were deserted. In fact, the only other people brave enough to leave the warmth from the common room fires were the Gryffindor Quidditch team players.

"What the bloody hell are you doing with my best mate?" Sirius quite bluntly asked.

Lily stopped dead in her tracks and exclaimed, "He told you! I can't believe it, he promised that he wouldn't say a word until I talked with Camilla and Libby… what the hell?"

"Calm down Evans," Sirius instructed. "He didn't tell me, I saw the two of you snogging in the hallways the other night."

"What?" Lily shrieked.

"That's right," he replied, "But you were too busy with your tongue down James's throat to even notice me."

"No, no, you are mistaken," she nervously lied.

"Really?" Sirius asked, a sarcastic smile forming at his lips, "So then the girl with the red hair and shiny Head Girl badge wasn't you?"

"Well, it wasn't James," she snapped.

"Don't try and back out of this now," Sirius said. "So, tell me the truth, Evans, what the bloody hell are you doing with my best mate?"

She pursed her lips together and said, "Okay, fine, you win. I kissed James."

"Wow, now won't that make a great theme for a party. Yes, I can see it now. Gryffindor Tower will celebrate the fact that our Head Girl has finally gotten over herself and snogged James."

"No," she yelled. "You can't tell anyone!"

"Why shouldn't I?" he asked, a very large, mischievous grin on his face.

"You wouldn't dare," Lily stated.

"Why not? You know, James knows, and I know," he said, listing the names on his fingers. "Besides, that's a pretty big secret, I just don't know if I can keep it."

"What do you want?"

"The truth," he said, "Why are you snogging James when you're supposed to be on duty?"

Lily didn't say anything. Instead, she looked Sirius up and down as she pursed her lips. Once she came to a solution, she slowly said, "He didn't tell you and it's driving you crazy, isn't it?"

"That's not important," Sirius stated, although Lily was quite certain that she had been perfectly on target.

"No," she replied. "I've got it exactly right. You saw James and me together and he didn't even tell you, his very best friend. You probably even asked him if anything unusual happened during rounds and he just acted like nothing happened. And now, you're here confronting me, not James."

"Shut up, Evans," he said. Yes, she had certainly struck a nerve.

"What do you want to know?"

"How long?"

"Officially? Two weeks," she replied. "But it's been coming for a while now."

"Why is it a secret?"

"I don't want to hurt Camilla and Libby."

"And James is okay with this?"

"Well, he's obviously going along with it," Lily answered. "But it's not going to be for too much longer."

"Don't hurt him," Sirius suddenly said," Because I swear, Evans, I've never hexed a girl before, but I wouldn't mind starting for you."

"Why would I hurt him?" Lily asked, ignoring his second comment. "Sirius, this isn't just something I'm doing for a good laugh. I actually like him, I really like him."

"You say that, but I'm not convinced Evans… In case you've forgotten, he's been in love with you for two years now. He'd do anything for you, including keeping whatever it is you two are doing a secret. He's too blind to see that this is a dumb idea and he won't say it to your face, that's for sure," Sirius said. "Just don't hurt him. He's my best mate and I don't want to see him upset when you suddenly change your mind and say its not going to work out."

"I'm not going to," Lily shouted. "You take me for some ice queen, but I'm not."

"You're right, I'm judging you when I shouldn't," he began. "But the truth is that you wouldn't give him the time of day for two years and now suddenly you're snogging him. And once you stop, I'll still be there to clean up the mess. I don't want to see him hurt; you've already hurt him enough."

"He's changed and so have I," Lily exclaimed. "What James and I have is real and I'm not going to push him away or anything. I like him!"

"If it's so real, why is it a secret?" Sirius retorted.

"You just can't get over the fact that he didn't tell you," she snapped.

"No," Sirius lied. "I just don't want you to hurt him."

"I'm not going to."

"Whatever you say, Evans," Sirius said as he began to walk away. It was quite apparent that he didn't believe a word she said, despite the fact that it was the complete truth. She cared about James and she would never hurt him.

"Sirius," she called out after him.

As if reading her mind, Sirius turned to face her and said, "Don't worry, I won't tell… not yet anyways."

"Sirius!" she yelled, but never received a response.

Lily sighed as she began to walk back to the castle. She could clearly see Sirius's footsteps along the path, despite the fact that he had left a few minutes before her. She was glad though she didn't want to walk with him. His words ran through her mind over and over again. She wasn't going to hurt James, she liked him, really liked him. In fact, she liked him more than any other boy she'd ever dated.

Sirius was just bitter, that's all. There was absolutely no truth to his words. There couldn't be truth to his words. Lily would rather kiss the giant squid than hurt James.

And that last bit he said, about not telling anyone yet. What exactly was that supposed to mean? He wouldn't actually dare to say anything, would he? That was just to get her riled up, right? She only prayed that Sirius's feeling of betrayal overrode his desire to ruin her life.

Still, Sirius's words still bothered her for the rest of the day. To make matters even worse, she ran into him two more times that day. Luckily, he was with Remus one of those times and didn't say anything. Sirius did shoot her a nasty glare when Remus wasn't looking, but didn't say anything.

The second time she saw him, he was with James. It made Lily feel very uncomfortable. James, not having a clue that Sirius knew about them, stopped to talk to Lily as friends. Sirius kept eyeing both of them; an action that made Lily anxious, but hadn't been noticed at all by James. There was even a moment when Lily was quite sure that Sirius was about to spill the beans, but he quickly ended his "James I have something to confess" with a "I told Moony we'd meet him back in the dormitory five minutes ago."

Finally, it was time once again for rounds. Lily got up from her spot in the common room and found James, alone, working on his Charms essay. He happily dropped it though when he saw her and the two of them headed out the portrait hole.

Once out of sight, James leaned forward and kissed her. For some reason, James often translated a night of rounds into a night of kissing Lily.

"James," she said with a smile across her face, "We need to be careful."

"Who's going to see us?" James asked.

"People," she replied.

"People?"

"Yes, you know, its kind of the reason why we're patrolling the hallways," she began, "So that we can catch students out of bed."

"Really?" he sarcastically remarked, "I thought that it was for mere fun and games."

"Oh shut up," she laughed and lightly pushed him into the wall.

He grinned as he trotted up to her, loving her little act of flirtation. "So, want to come to the kitchens with me?"

"You didn't get enough to eat at dinner?" she asked, giving him a "yeah, right" look.

"Of course I did, but I'm bored and it's so close," he answered. "Besides, can you really resist the Hogwarts double chocolate cake?"

Needless to say, Lily didn't object for a quick bite to eat in the kitchens. No sane person could resist the concoctions that the Hogwarts House Elves made up, especially the chocolate ones. There were rumors that the House Elves melted chocolate frogs into the batter, which gave it that extra kick.

What made the kitchens even better than eating the food at the regular house tables in the Great Hall was that the House Elves were always there too please you. Therefore, when one particular elf by the name of Pumpkin noticed that Lily particularly enjoyed the frosting, she offered Lily a giant tub of pure icing to take back with her.

"Planning to go on a sugar high?" James asked as Lily took a spoonful of chocolate frosting.

She paused, the spoon barely touching her lips, and grinned at him. Then, without any hesitation, she stuck her fingers into the large jar, leaned across the table, and smeared the frosting across James's face.

"No, I was planning on painting tonight," she answered.

His jaw dropped and he stared at her. She didn't just do that, did she? From the grin on her face and the stickiness on his cheek, James realized that his mind was not playing tricks on him. Not one to pass up on anything, James dipped his own hands into the icing and flung it at Lily, covering her hair and face.

She shrieked and stood up, gaping at him. It hadn't occurred to her that he would actually retaliate. She then reached for her plate and picked up the remainder of her cake and tossed it at him. The cake hit him square in the face, knocking at his glasses and dripping down his face.

James was on his feet now too and instead of grabbing more food, he went directly for the source. He ran the short distance to the other side of the small table and grabbed onto Lily's sides. He held her laughing form in one hand and grabbed more icing with the other. He then proceeded to smear it down her formerly beautiful red hair.

Lily shrieked some more and began to laugh uncontrollably as she tried her best to fend off James. In the background, Lily was quite sure that the House Elves were staring at them in horror, unsure what to do. It didn't matter though, Lily was having too much fun at the moment to care.

With sticky hands, Lily reached up, grabbed James's face and kissed him. It immobilized him, which was her plan, and she was able to escape from his grasp. She laughed as she found a nearby can of whipped topping and sprayed it at James. He reached out and was able to grab a hold of the can and they were both struggling to regain control of it. This result being that they were both covered in icing, cake, and whipped cream.

It was quite the sight. In the middle of the kitchens, there stood the Head Boy and Girl, looking as if birthday cake and ice cream exploded on them, ten stunned House Elves, and a large mess on the floor.

Once Lily and James ran out of supplies to cover each other with, they looked around at their mess and apologized profusely to the House Elves, who said that it wasn't a problem at all. Lily still felt bad, but took their word for it and she and James left the kitchens.

They both decided that finishing rounds that night was not going to be an option and only hoped for the best. They stumbled back to Gryffindor Tower, completely covered and looking like quite the mess. Meanwhile, neither of them could contain their laughter. They ran into a close call with Mr. Filch, but managed to hide inside a classroom and escape his wrath.

Once back in the common room, they received very stares from the few students who hadn't gone to bed yet. However, seeing as they were underclassmen, neither Lily nor James felt the need to explain themselves.

Lily said goodnight to James and then headed up the stairs to her dormitory. She was surprised to see both Libby and Camilla still awake, but not nearly as surprised as they were to see her such a mess.

"Lily, what happened?" Libby asked.

"Peeves," Lily lied as she headed for the shower, a dreamy smile still spread across her face.

...

**Author's Note 2: **Thanks for reading, hope you all enjoyed it! I'm still a little iffy on the part with Sirius, but I hope that it was up to all of your standards. And you know the drill: please review.


	14. Dinner Date

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter & Co.

**Author's Notes: **Thanks so much to siriusforeva, Blair.The.Adorable, anonymous992, Expectance, marauderette92, carrymeaway, opungo, lqharbaugh101, snaplappl21, O Ancient One, me, pippapear, Princess Sophie Potter, TaylorxxSue, BlAcKdAuGhTeR, Romancing Hogwarts x3, lilyfan06, JJ-000-JJ, LBJ equals life, and GGHSMFREAK for reviewing!

...

A few days later, finally a Saturday, Lily woke up to find that all of her roommates had already left the room. She glanced at the clock and saw that it read twelve o'clock already. She was stunned, she had never slept this late in her life. It wasn't surprising though, at least not with the amount of sneaking around and late nights she spent with James.

After showering and getting dressed, Lily headed down the stairs, ready to join her friends in the Great Hall. She had a good feeling about today. She woke up that morning feeling more relaxed than she had in weeks and had had an amazing dream as well. In her dream, she and James were sneaking around the castle grounds and had run straight into Camilla and Libby. In her dream, she had been so nervous about it, but then it ended with Camilla and Libby being happy for Lily. If only dreams could actually be reality.

Still with her head in the clouds, Lily managed to run straight into Sirius Black, again.

"Nasty habit you've got there," he commented. "You should really try focusing on what's in front of you next time you start walking."

"Shut up," she said in her usual annoyed voice whenever talking to Sirius Black.

"But what fun would that be?"

"Loads," she answered.

"Maybe I should just go make signs and post them all over school," he said, nodding enthusiastically, "'Head Girl snogs Head Boy while on duty' I can see it now."

"Sirius," Lily warned.

"Relax, Evans."

"Can't you just give it a rest?"

"Can't you just admit to everyone that you're snogging my best mate?" Sirius asked.

"Can't you just stay out of other people's business?" Lily countered.

Just then, the portrait hole swung open and James walked in. He looked from Sirius to Lily, a confused expression spread across his face. "What's up?" he slowly asked.

Okay this was it, Lily was sure of it. Sirius Black was finally going to confess that he knew it all and that he had just told half the school. Lily could clearly picture it now. Great, just great. Her life was about to be over.

But then the unexpected happened and Sirius replied, "Oh nothing, Evans here was just helping me with my Silencing Charm." He grinned at Lily, his eyes dancing.

"That's right," Lily said, nodding her head. "Nice job, Black. Now if you will both excuse me, I was just about to go down to the Great Hall."

Once she arrived in the Great Hall, she quickly saw Libby and Camilla. As she sat down next to them, large grins appeared across theirs faces. Lily eyed them, wondering what the two girls were up to.

"Lily, have any dinner plans?" Libby sweetly asked.

"Does eating with the two of you count?" Lily replied.

"So we take that as a no them, right?" Camilla said.

"Well, would you like to?" Libby asked, nodding her head as she spoke.

"Because you would never believe what we happened to find out," Camilla explained. "Connor O'Shields, that absolutely gorgeous seventh year Ravenclaw, likes you. Apparently he's been mustering up the courage to ask you out. So, being the great friends that we are, we kind of arranged for you two to sit down, eat some food, and get to know each other better!"

Lily's smile dropped as soon as she heard Camilla's words and her eyes widened. Oh no, oh no, oh no. This was bad, very bad. She couldn't just have dinner some other boy. What about James? She had promised that the two of them would be publicly together soon. Being see with another boy, let alone one that likes her, was certainly a very bad idea.

Why were her friends so incredibly dumb? Couldn't they see that she didn't want to be set up? This was awful, just awful. If only she could tell them about James, it would make everything better. Well, no, that's not true. If they knew about James, they would surely get upset with her.

And what about Sirius? If he saw Lily with another boy, she was sure it would classify as hurting James. Then he would probably open his big mouth and spread her secret! There was no winning this. She was royally screwed and didn't know what to do about it.

"I, I don't know," Lily said, giving her friends sympathetic looks.

"Oh come on Lily," Camilla said. "What's wrong with him? He's gorgeous, he's smart, and he's actually a lot like you. Honestly I'm surprised that the two of you haven't gotten together before this."

"I, I just don't feel like being with anyone right now," Lily lied. That was definitely a blatant lie. She did want to be with someone and that someone was James Potter.

"Would it kill you to just eat with him?" Libby asked, giving Lily a look that made her feel very, very guilty.

"Maybe," she squeaked.

"Don't be so dramatic," Camilla said. "One dinner will not kill you so just do it. You never know, you might just find that he's the perfect guy for you."

Lily gave her a meek smile. She really didn't know what to do. It looked like she had no way of backing out of this dinner either. Camilla and Libby were certainly not about to take no for an answer. In the end, Lily finally agreed to eat dinner with Connor, but from her tone it was quite apparent that she really didn't want to. Camilla and Libby were convinced that they knew best though and took Lily's apprehension for granted.

Now the only problem was James. She had to tell him the truth, even if it might hurt him. She would rather confess that she was forced into this dinner than have him see her. She knew that would upset him; after all, if she saw him having dinner with another girl, she knew that she would most certainly become jealous.

Of course, telling James proved to be a much more difficult task than Lily had anticipated. Every time she saw him, he wasn't alone. First he was off disappearing with the rest of the Quidditch team. Then, when he came back form practice, he appeared to be deep in conversation with the Gryffindor Seeker. The only other time she saw him, James was with his fellow Marauders.

It was no use; there was no hope at all. It was time to meet Connor and she hadn't been able to speak with James. She was just going to have to pray for the best. Or maybe, if she was lucky, James wouldn't be at dinner. No, that was just foolish thinking. He was a teenage boy, of course he would be at dinner.

Once Lily entered the Great Hall, she saw Connor waiting for her. He led her over to the Ravenclaw table and they sat in a secluded section near the end. Lily couldn't help but think that there went her chances of it looking like a friendly dinner. If only there were more people around them!

"So, er, Lily, how are you?" Connor asked.

"Alright, I suppose," she replied. "And you?"

"Great, just great," he answered, smiling at her.

They continued their conversation, which at any other time, Lily would have enjoyed. It was true, Connor was very smart. He made Lily feel smart when she was around him too. Connor seemed to have an opinion about everything and liked to share them with Lily. He freely talked about the rise of Lord Voldemort and what he thought it meant for the Wizarding community and even ventured to speak about Muggle politics (which he knew a lot about because he too was a Muggle born).

However, Lily couldn't enjoy herself. She kept nervously glancing around the room, waiting for James to burst through the doors. Connor seemed to notice her behavior and apologized for talking too much, which Lily responded was not a problem at all. Feeling bad about ignoring Connor, Lily decided that the best thing to do was engage in conversation. It wasn't going to be any sort of romantic conversation; she just thought of Connor as a friend.

Then it happened: James Potter had finally entered the Great Hall. He didn't notice Lily's absence as the Gryffindor table at first. However, his eyes quickly began to scan the room. Then he saw her and his heart stopped for a moment. He caught Lily's eyes from across the room, but was so shocked at seeing Lily alone with another boy that he didn't even notice the apologetic expression in her emerald eyes.

As Lily stared at James from across the room, she noticed the gruff look on his face. He didn't laugh, smile, or even talk. Instead, he focused on staring at Lily. It made her quite uncomfortable and it was a look that she hoped she would never see coming from him again. If only she could explain it all to him now!

Connor seemed to notice her lack of interest in him and asked, "Everything okay?" Then he made the dire mistake. He looked over his shoulder, giving James the opportunity to see exactly who was wooing Lily Evans.

"I'm fine," she muttered.

"You know, Lily, I'm having a really good time with you," Connor said.

"Yeah, um, sure," she replied, not paying attention to anything that he had said. All she could think about was James.

"We should do it again sometime," he pressed on. "I, well, I've really been noticing you now, not that it's very hard. You're very talented and beautiful, but I'm sure you hear that all the time… I'm glad we finally decided to try something out."

"Yeah, sure."

"Are you listening to me at all?"

"Yeah, sure," she said again.

"Lily," Connor said, a bit stronger this time. "Are you even listening to me?"

Snapping her attention back to Connor, she admitted, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry… I've been distracted, but continue."

"Is it Potter?" Connor asked.

"What?"

"Is Potter the reason why you're distracted?" he repeated.

"No," she snapped. This was bad, very bad. "You know, Connor, you're a really sweet guy and all, but I just don't see this working out. I'm sorry."

"What?" he asked, slightly taken aback.

"I'm sorry, I really am," Lily said as she stood up and gathered her belongings. "The truth is that Camilla and Libby should have never promised you anything without asking me first. I'm just not looking for anyone special at this moment in time."

"This doesn't have anything to do with that angry look that Potter's shooting us, does it?" Connor asked. Okay, so Lily had to hand it to him, Connor was much better at noticing the signs than any other boy she had ever met.

"No," she half lied. "It's got nothing to do with Potter… I should go."

She left the Great Hall, just in time too. Once she was out of sight, James sent a hex Connor's way, making his food attack him anytime he tried to eat it. It was a rather funny sight to watch. Every time poor Connor picked up his fork, it began to back fire and jab into his hand. Of course, he didn't get that the hex was on him and not solely on the silverware so even after using different utensils, it still took him several tries to realize that he would not be getting any more dinner that evening.

After laughing at his own hex, James told the Marauders that he wasn't very hungry and left the table. He then hurried to Gryffindor Tower, hoping that Lily would be there. He was in luck; she was there. She was pacing the empty common room and mumbling to herself.

"Lily," he said.

"James," she exclaimed. Knowing that everyone else was at dinner, she rushed over to him and wrapped her arms around him. "I'm so sorry, I tried to tell you."

"What were you doing?" he asked, hurt shining in his eyes.

"I didn't want to but Camilla and Libby backed me into a corner and they made me have dinner with him," Lily quickly began. "I didn't want to though, I swear. The whole time I kept thinking that I would much rather be with you and not Connor. It was dreadful, it really was. I just didn't know what to do."

"You could have said no," James slowly said.

"I tried but they wouldn't listen," Lily exclaimed. "Trust me, James, I really tried."

"Lily, can't you just tell them the truth?" he asked, sounding very tired of their situation. "Then they wouldn't try and set you up with random guys."

"I can't, not yet," she replied. "They still don't want to hear it."

"Make them hear it," he said, groaning with frustration.

"It's not that easy," she explained. "You don't know what its like. If you told your friends they would probably be supportive and do anything they could to make sure you were happy, Sirius would even threaten me if I ever hurt you; but not mine. They don't like you and I have to convince them that you're a good guy."

James bypassed on the subject of his friends and said, "I know you're trying, but try harder, Lils. I don't want to hide this anymore. You have no idea what it felt like sitting there watching him flirt with you and knowing I couldn't do anything about it."

"Just know that I like you," she softly replied.

A smile formed at James's lips and he said, "I know." He then wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a deep kiss. It was risky because anyone could come into the common room at any second now, but it was worth it. He needed that kiss; he needed to really know that she chose him.

"I'll try to talk to them again, I promise," she whispered before kissing him again.

"Good, because I want to be able to do this whenever I want," he replied, pulling Lily in for one more kiss.

...

**Author's Note 2: **Thanks for reading, hope you all enjoyed it! Please review... I might just update tomorrow if you do!


	15. Confessions of the Head Girl, Pt II

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter & Co.

**Author's Note: **Thanks so much to mrsjamessiriuspotter, JJ-000-JJ, TaylorxxSue, Expectance, snaplappl21, anonymous992, bananaslugg, redglasses, BlAcKdAuGhTeR, Oldmanmah, Celtic-Elements, pippapear, heart11broken, me, marauderette92, PuppyBekaCooper, opungo, Blair.The.Adorable, Princess Sophie Potter, and siriusforeva for reviewing! Thanks to all of you, as promised, here's an update within 24 hours of the last one! Now, enjoy the chapter!

...

A week had passed since Lily's "dinner date" with Connor. It was still a nightmare in Lily's mind. James had been a good sport about it (she still didn't know that he had hexed Connor), which was what really mattered to her. She had also gone ballistic on Libby and Camilla, which ensured that they wouldn't ever set Lily up without her prior knowledge ever, ever again.

The only down side to Lily's week was that Sirius continued to harass her. Every time they were alone together, which happened much more than Lily would have enjoyed, he made a snide comment. Sirius always seemed to be on the brink of shouting out Lily and James's secret romance, but he never did. Lily came to the conclusion that he wouldn't ever tell without James giving him the go-ahead and simply enjoyed giving her a hard time about it.

As far as Lily knew, James still had no idea that Sirius knew about them. If anything, all he thought was that the school was beginning to see that he and Lily were becoming friends. Of course Camilla and Libby were having a difficult time believing this. They took Lily's "I'm going to the library and studying with James" more like a "I can't believe I got stuck studying with Potter… again."

And that was where Lily was once again, in the library with James. They had a big Defense Against the Dark Arts essay due on Tuesday so Lily insisted on finishing it over the weekend. James, simply wanting to spend time with Lily, had agreed to accompany her.

Just as Lily had finished her first piece of parchment, a note appeared in front of her. It read, "Lily, I'm bored."

She looked up and saw James staring at her from across the table. He did, indeed, have a very bored looking expression on his face. She glanced at his essay; he already had two pieces of parchment done.

Lily then took out a spare piece of paper and wrote, "Too bad," before passing the note to James.

After reading it, James tilted his head and did his best to make a sad face. It was actually a funny sight; James Potter did not do fake sad faces very well. He just looked like a cross between a troll imitation and a normal face.

"Can't we go?" he whispered, doing his best not to get them in trouble by the very strict librarian.

"I'm not done," she replied, "And neither are you."

"I'm half way done," he said.

"No you're not," she laughed, "It's supposed to be a minimum of seven pages."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah," she answered.

"Well, can we go anyway and finish it tomorrow?"

"No."

"Please?"

"Are you going to stop bugging me?"

"No."

"Okay, fine," Lily finally agreed. "I'll finish mine later tonight."

She then gathered her bags and left the library with James, who looked quite proud of himself. He tried to take her bag from her and carry it, but Lily simply wouldn't allow it. She didn't want to give him the idea that she needed him for those small actions. Besides, it would draw attention to them.

"So what did you have in mind?" she asked.

He grinned and pulled Lily into a deserted classroom. He then proceeded to kiss her, right there in the open. Sure, the classroom was empty, but it wasn't locked or anything. What if a teacher had walked in!

Lily put her hand on his chest and pushed him away, "James we can't do this in here."

"Why not?"

She looked around her surroundings and exclaimed, "This is McGonagall's classroom! She would absolutely murder us, with her bare hands!"

"She's not that scary," James remarked, still grinning at Lily.

"James," Lily said, a definite warning tone in her voice.

"I happen to know that she's out of town for the weekend," James explained. "Or haven't you noticed that she hasn't been at the staff table for any meals all weekend? And I that's not enough proof for you, you should start reading the newspaper. McGonagall's sister had quite a scare with Death Eaters during the week. Chances of McGonagall going to visit her are quite high."

Lily eyed him up and down, wondering whether or not he was telling the truth. McGonagall hadn't been at the staff table, so maybe James was right, maybe she had gone away. But there was still a chance that another professor could walk into the classroom, right?

Then again, James did look rather handsome today and Lily didn't know when the next time she would be truly alone with him again. They weren't scheduled to have rounds together for the next five days. That meant an awful long time of just merely being friends with James.

What harm could it really do? James was right, the chance of anyone seeing them was slim to none. Besides, she and James always did have more fun whenever they were doing something slightly risky.

Lily grinned at James, which he took as a sign to advance. He wrapped his arms around her and planted a large kiss on her face. His lips felt soft against hers and his breath was surprisingly minty fresh. When he pulled away to pause and take a break, Lily hungrily pulled him back down to her lips, not wanting to stop their kisses.

Somehow, they managed to move across the room and James picked Lily off her feet and sat her down on top of one of the student tables. He stood next to her, his tongue exploring her mouth and his hands wandering across her back. He paused for a moment and sat down next to her on the table before continuing to kiss her lips again.

Lily repositioned herself so that she sat on her knees as she was kissing him, his hands still rummaging across the outside of her robes before loosening his tie. She ran one of her hands through his jet-black hair, which despite its wild appearance was actually rather soft. She slipped and fell on top of him, but that didn't stop their passionate kissing. They carried on, Lily lying directly on top of James.

She pushed off his school robes, leaving him in his button down shirt and a now very loosely tied tie. She felt his hands sneak beneath her robes and untuck her white blouse from beneath her skirt. Then they were on her bare skin and Lily felt a shiver spread across her body, in a very good way. She kissed him harder, wanting him even more than she had before.

In fact, they were so wrapped up in each other that they didn't even hear the door creak open or the book bag drop and crash to the floor. As far as Lily and James were concerned, they were the only two people in the entire school at that moment. Unfortunately, however, there were others; two wide-eyed girls had just walked in.

"Lily!" came one very familiar voice.

"Potter?" said the other girl.

At that, Lily and James both stopped and opened their eyes. Lily stared directly down at him, frozen in place. No, this wasn't happening, was it? She didn't just hear them, did she? James didn't have a smile on his face, which only confirmed her worst nightmare. Libby and Camilla had just walked in and saw everything.

"What the bloody hell is going on here?" Camilla shouted, she was breathing very loudly and staring at Lily and James as if she had just seen a three-headed dog.

Lily felt a rush of guilt spread across her body. Like a guilty mistress, Lily climbed off of James and stood by the table. James sat up and stared from Lily to her two friends, unsure of what to do. Lily nervously bit her lip and could feel her face turn a bright shade of pink.

"I, I," Lily began, but didn't know what to say. She looked at James, who looked just as guilty as she felt. Then she looked back at Camilla and Libby, who were both too stunned to show any other emotion. "I have to go," she quickly said and ran out of the classroom. Her heart was pounding and she felt terrible about leaving, but didn't dare to look back. She had to escape, she needed more time to think.

Lily ran all the way back to Gryffindor Tower, knocking down a small first year boy on her way. She didn't apologize though, she just kept moving forward. Once she arrived at the portrait hole, she quickly said the password and bolted through the common room and up the stairs.

Her heart was racing as she collapsed onto her bed. Her head was spinning. She took deep breaths in and out, trying to steady her mind. She knew that she didn't have a lot of time; they would be arriving soon.

"Lily!" Camilla shouted as she ran into the seventh year girls' dormitory. Liby was right behind her; both girls stared intently at Lily.

Lily didn't say a word though. Instead, she continued to take deep breaths in and out. She tried to forget it all… she wanted to forget it all.

"Lily," Libby said, trying a more compassionate approach.

Once again, Lily didn't say anything.

"Lily, what the heck is going on here?"

"This isn't like you…"

"How could you?"

"Are you okay?"

"Why?"

"I thought you hated him?"

"I thought you were my friend…"

"What were you thinking?"

"She wasn't thinking… especially not about me…."

"Why did you do it?"

"I trusted you…"

"How long has this been going on?"

"Why didn't you tell us?"

"Lily, just say something, anything."

She took one final deep breathe before sitting up from her four-poster bed. Lily looked at her two best friends and said, "It wasn't supposed to happen. I didn't even want it to happen, it just did."

"Start from the beginning," Camilla stated, a stern look on her face.

Lily sighed and confessed everything to them. She told them about becoming friends with James, sneaking out of the castle, lying to everyone, kissing James in secret, and that she had begun to see him in a different light. She told them everything, not leaving out a single detail. In a way, she felt relieved. Now that everything was out in the open, she could freely share her feelings and emotions with her two best friends.

Once Lily was finished telling her tale, Libby stared at her and simply said, "Oh my God." That was all she could muster up; otherwise, she was lost for words.

Camilla was the same; she hadn't said anything. She only stared at Lily in disbelief. Although, it was much better than Lily had anticipated. She thought that Camilla would be yelling at her and crying. Camilla didn't look upset with Lily though, she was just shocked.

When the silence continued on and Lily couldn't take it anymore, she decided to take a shower. She didn't really need one at that moment, but it would get her out of her room. With the hot water falling on her shoulders and the water washing out the sounds around her, it also gave Lily some more time to think.

She sighed a sigh of relief. It was finally over; she could now really have both James and her friends. It was kind of like ripping off the bandage; everyone always dreads it, but in the end it's just something that has to be done. Now that Camilla and Libby knew about James and seemed to be reacting much better than Lily thought they would, she could finally be open with the entire school. She and James could finally be together, well, at least together in public now.

Once the reality finally sunk in, Lily hopped out of the shower and put on her robes again. With the towel still in her hair, she walked back into her room. Neither Libby nor Camilla was there and Lily figured they must have gone to the common room or library. She hummed to herself as she finished preparing herself and even smiled into the mirror.

Then, she went downstairs to join the rest of the Gryffindors. There weren't a lot of people in the common room, which surprised Lily. Even though it was close to the dinner hour, she still expected it to be fairly packed. However, the only people there were Camilla, Libby, James, and a small group of third years.

"Lily," James said at once; it looked as if he had been waiting especially for her, jumping at the chance to speak with her.

"James," she said, she felt her stomach fill with butterflies again, as if they were about to have their first kiss again.

"Are you okay?" he asked, concern written across his face. "I mean, is everything okay?"

Just as Lily was about to answer, Camilla got up from her spot by the fire and walked over to them. She shot a mean glare at James and asked, "Haven't you done enough? Just leave her alone already! I mean, first you somehow manipulate her into thinking that she likes you and now what? She didn't put out so you're going to stick around? Just go away!"

James stared at Camilla, his jaw dropped. Then he looked at Lily, who stupidly stood there like a complete idiot. His eyes darted back to Camilla, whose stare had become even worse.

"Lily?" he softly said. His eyes were full of confusion and hurt.

Lily looked at him and she could feel her heart stopping. She tried to say something, anything, but no words came out. She tried again; her lips were pried open, but not a single sound left her mouth.

James's expression suddenly hardened, but his eyes still gave away his true emotion. "Fine," he bitterly said, "I'll see you around." He then turned on his heel and calmly walked up to the boy's dormitory.

Lily watched him walk away and began to panic. No, no, no, this didn't just happen. It couldn't have just happened. No, no, no, this was bad. This was very bad. No, this was far worse than bad. There was no word in the English dictionary to describe just how bad this was.

Not that it mattered, for Lily still couldn't find her voice. Her head was spinning and she could physically feel her throat closing up on her. Her breathing was at an all-time heaviness.

Finding her feet, Lily didn't say anything, but ran up the stairs. Once back in her room, she found a brown, paper bag and brought it to her mouth. She took deep breaths, in and out. She needed to calm herself before she had an anxiety attack.

What had just happened?

...

**Author's Note 2: **Thanks for reading! Now, tell me, how many of you seriously want to kill Camilla now?! Anyways, as per usual, more reviews lead to faster updates! So do your part and review please!


	16. Lily's Outburst

**Disclaimer: **I don't own HP & Co.

**Author's Note: **Thank you, thank you, thank you to Anime Wildfire, TaylorxxSue, snaplappl21, Celtic-Elements, redglasses, carrymeaway, mrsjamessiriuspotter, mansts, marauderette92, Blue-Eyed Chica, ohome, opungo, bananaslugg, WaveRider 53, anonymous992, CwamBeta, silent b, BlAcKdAuGhTeR, Expectance, Romancing Hogwarts x3, DarthRoden aka Carl, Raynabow, xSecretEvansx, JJ-000-JJ, suh, Blair.The.Adorable, Galasriniel, tasha27, lilyfan06, Avigail Messika, William, siriusforeva, Tahira, dancechic12345, karenwrites, Princess Sophie Potter, Princess Ducky, TaimaHawk12, pippapear, and GGHSMFREAK for reviewing! And I loved all of the suggestions of how to make Camilla go away/ die it was really amusing!

...

By the time Libby and Camilla had finally come up to the dormitory to check on Lily, Lily was still breathing into a brown paper bag. Lily wasn't exactly sure how long it had been, but she did know that she had not calmed down quite yet.

"Are you okay?" Camilla asked.

Lily dropped the bag at once and was shaking with fury. She stared at Camilla and shouted, "YOU!"

"Yes," Camilla slowly said, "Are you okay?"

"What the fuck did you just do?" Lily yelled.

"What?" Camilla asked. "I just told Potter off for you, hopefully he'll get it by now."

"Why would you ever do that?" Lily exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. "Did you not listen to a single word I said?"

"Yes," Camilla replied. "But you're so sucked into it that you can't see the truth, Lily. And the fact is that James Potter is not a good person and somehow managed to trick you into thinking that you liked him! I'm not going to let him get away with it anymore, I care too much about you."

"No," Lily snapped. "You're just so wrapped up in the past that you can't even open one bloody eye to see that he's changed. My God, Camilla, it happened three years ago, get over it already!"

Camilla's jaw dropped and her eyes narrowed. "Lily, you can't be serious? This isn't you talking. This is just the poisoned mind that Potter manipulated into you. The Lily Evans I know would never, ever fall for James Potter. The Lily Evans that I know would never betray her best friends and she would certainly never lie about being with a boy! Look what he's done to you!"

"What he's done to me?" Lily gasped. "He's shown me more of Hogwarts in the past two months than I've seen in the past seven years! He's been there to listen to anything I wanted to talk about! He's shown me new and exciting ways to actually have fun around here! Can't you see that?"

"He's changed you," Camilla snapped.

"For the better!" Lily yelled. "If it wasn't for James being the amazing guy that he is, I would still be a bitter, frigid bitch toward him, kind of like you."

"I am not!"

"Yes you are," Lily roared.

Realizing that she wasn't getting anywhere with her current tactic, Camilla shouted out, "How could you do this to me? Friends aren't supposed to date friend's ex-boyfriends! And you lied to me, how could you?"

"Yes, I lied and I'm sorry, I really am. If I could take it all back, I would have been upfront about it all from the very beginning, but I can't turn back time. And like I told you earlier, I didn't intend to like James, it just happened. I can't control who I'm drawn to," Lily said, then in a much harsher tone, she added, "But that doesn't excuse what you did! Merlin, Camilla, you need to just get over yourself and forgive James for being a prat three years ago. You can't just explode at him whenever you want. And like it or not, I like him. And you, you've ruined it all! How could you do that to me?"

"You'll thank me once you realize that he hasn't changed," Camilla yelled.

"No, you're wrong," Lily stated. "He has changed and he actually cares about me. But you've just gone and made it all a complete mess!"

"I don't have to stand here and listen to this," Camilla shouted.

"No, you're right, you don't!" Lily yelled back.

With one final humph, Camilla turned on her heel and left their shared dormitory. Lily was quite happy to see her leave. She didn't want to deal with Camilla anymore; she'd had more than enough of her. She was still so furious, how could Camilla say that awful stuff to James? Camilla didn't know what she was talking about. Lily could just wring her neck she was so angry.

"You really like him," Libby softly said. Lily almost jumped when she heard Libby's voice. She had forgotten that Libby was even there, she'd been so silent during the argument.

Lily took a couple of deep breaths in efforts to try and calm herself down once again. "Yes," she finally said.

"I believe you," Libby stated. "If you say he's changed, then I believe you."

"Then why did you push it off whenever I mentioned that he was different?" Lily asked, very confused. There were countless times when Lily had tried to explain James's good qualities to her friends, but neither of them wanted to hear it.

"I didn't want Camilla to get upset," Libby softly answered. "I figured that as long as it wasn't hurting anyone, what did it matter if I said Potter was annoying, just to cheer her up."

Lily, who was still standing, went over and sat down on Libby's bed. She wrapped her arms around her best friend and dropped her head down, whispering, "I'm sorry I lied."

Libby returned the hug and replied, "I'll get over it."

After a couple minutes of just sitting in silence, Lily finally asked, "What am I going to do?"

"Camilla will get over it, I promise," Libby said, giving Lily a small smile. "She just needs time, but she'll come around eventually… And as far as James goes, you should probably talk to him."

"Yeah," Lily said as she nodded her head. "He'll understand, right?"

"I'm sure he will," Libby replied. "He just needs to know the truth. Besides, it looks like you two can officially call yourselves a couple now, right?"

"I suppose so," Lily answered.

Wanting to talk to James, Lily headed down the stairs and sat in the common room. For nearly twenty minutes she merely waited there, staring at the boy's staircase. Then she quickly ran upstairs, grabbed her homework, and immediately returned to her spot. She glanced up every time she heard a single noise coming from the boy's staircase, but it was never James's footsteps she heard.

Lily waited for a long time and before she knew it, it was one o'clock in the morning. James hadn't set foot out of his dormitory, which made Lily very nervous. She needed to talk to him; she had to talk to him. It was very urgent. She didn't want James to think for a second longer that Camilla's hurtful words were true.

It was no use though. James obviously wasn't leaving his room now, not at this hour anyways. Feeling very defeated, Lily went back up to her own dormitory. Her four roommates were already asleep and Lily noticed that Camilla had tightly shut the curtains surrounding her bed, which she usually left open.

The next morning, Camilla left for breakfast without saying a word to Lily. Not that Lily minded, she was still far too angry to care what Camilla thought or did at the moment. It was only difficult for Libby, who was torn between who to side with. She ended up becoming the middleman and floated between the two feuding girls.

When Lily finally made her way down to the Great Hall, she immediately found James. He, not surprisingly, was sitting with Sirius, Remus, and Peter. He wasn't laughing though or even talking. In fact, he appeared to be in a world of his own, not even listening to whatever Remus had to say.

She took a deep breath and then walked up to James and tapped him on the shoulder. He slowly turned around and looked at her, there was still a bitter look in his eyes.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" she asked.

"Can it wait?" he bitterly asked, "I'm eating."

She was taken aback by his response; this was not the James Potter that she had been expecting. "Well, it's kind of important," she replied.

"Fine," he said and slammed his spoon down into his cereal bowl, splattering milk onto the table.

They exited the Great Hall and went to a more deserted corridor. James was still staring angrily at her, which Lily had to admit, she deserved. Camilla had said such hurtful words; if the situation was reversed and she didn't know the whole story, she would be mad too.

"What do you want?" James finally asked.

"I, I need to explain," she began. "James, I am so sorry about what happened yesterday."

"Sorry about getting caught or sorry that I, what was the word, manipulated you?" he bitterly asked.

"James," she said. "I'm sorry that Camilla said that stuff to you, she was completely out of line."

"Why didn't you stop her?" he yelled, losing his cool.

"I, I tried," she began, "I swear, I tried."

"Just like you tried to tell your friends that I'm not a prat?" he sarcastically said.

"I did!" Lily insisted. "And I told them everything. I don't know how Camilla came up with that stupid theory, but trust me, I told her off. I told her the truth!"

"Why did you run away? Why didn't you say anything in my defense?" he yelled. "You could have said anything, but no, you just stood there and let her yell at me and insult me!"

"I was scared," she admitted, "And in complete shock, believe me, I tried to say something, but words didn't come out." Her heart was beating fast again and she could feel water forming in her eyes.

"No, Lily," he said, shaking his head. "You just didn't want to disappoint your friends. For God's sake, Lily, all you care about is what other people think! I'm not surprised, really. I mean, what was I thinking going along with your stupid plan? I should have known better. You were never going to tell your friends about us until we got caught, were you? You just didn't want to disappoint them and ruin your perfect little reputation. Honestly, I should have seen it coming! First, you don't want to tell anyone. Then, you can't even say no to some date with another guy because you don't want to hurt their feelings. What about me though, Lily? Did it ever cross your mind that maybe I would get hurt? But no, you don't give a damn about anyone that doesn't aid to your reputation and goes against your friends."

"That's not true," Lily yelled back.

"Yes, it is," he demanded. "Your reputation and what your friends think about you means more to you than anything else is the world, doesn't it?"

"Just because I care about what people think of me doesn't mean I don't care about you," she insisted.

"And I don't count as people?" he remarked.

"James, stop it," she yelled. "I said I was sorry."

"It's not enough," he snapped. "I'm done. I don't want to do this anymore."

"James."

"No, Lily," he fiercely said. "We're done. It's over. In fact, let's forget it ever happened. The only people who know are you, me, Camilla, and Libby. No one else needs to know."

"But I don't want to forget it," she said.

"That makes one of us," he bitterly remarked.

"James, please," she said, chasing after him as he began to walk away.

"Just leave me alone," he exclaimed, "just, just go away."

She felt as if she had just been slapped across the face. She stood there in awe and watched as he walked away from her. He didn't look back either; he merely continued on his way, back to the Great Hall.

How could this have happened? How could James be so unforgiving? Lily had to lean against the wall for support. This couldn't be right; this couldn't be happening. James had just told her to go away. He didn't even want to hear her explanation. Had she really driven him off that much?

Or worse, was he right? Was she too wrapped up in her own reputation and what her friends thought of her to notice his feelings? She brought her fingers to her temples and rubbed them. All she wanted to do was forget everything that had happened. She just wanted to turn back time and make everything right. If only she had admitted to her friends the truth weeks ago! She wouldn't be in this mess now.

She felt hot tears run down her cheeks, but didn't wipe them away. Instead, she slid down the corridor wall until she came to a sitting position and merely let her tears run openly. It was the first time that she had cried in three years. For the next twenty minutes, she stayed where she was. She didn't want to see anyone; she just wanted to cry.

Then, knowing that she had class to attend, she wiped her eyes dry and headed straight for the bathroom. She looked in the mirror and saw that her eyes were stained with red and that mascara had run down her face. And still, she didn't feel like she had cried enough. Even though her eyes were dry now, she still felt empty.

Lily didn't go to Potions class that morning. She stayed in the bathroom instead, willing herself to cry, hoping that it would make her feel a little bit better. By not going to class, she ruined her perfect attendance.

...

**Author's Note 2: **Thanks for reading everyone! I hope that you all enjoyed it, only a couple more chapters left! And now, if you would please review, I would greatly appreciate it!


	17. Forgive Me?

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Harry Potter & Co.

**Author's Note: **Thanks so much to TaylorxxSue, tahiraaaaa 3, opungo, marauderette92, bananaslugg, Romancing Hogwarts x3, frizzyfro12, mrsjamessiriuspotter, RachelElizabeth, lqharbaugh101, anonymous992, redglasses, callie258, BlAcKdAuGhTeR, oldmanmah, Katie, Expectance, Raynabow, cheekychick, Princess Sophie Potter, emnic, carrymeaway, hpotterfan2047, pippapear, JJ-000-JJ, lilyfan06, and CrazzyD' for reviewing! You're all kind of amazing, and by kind of, I mean you are.

...

The next day proved to be just as bad as the last. Lily had tried countless times to catch James's eye, but had failed miserably. She watched him as often as was humanly possible, hoping for the slightest chance that he would accidentally glance her way. He never did though; it was as if he had purposefully planned not to.

Worse than James not even looking at her was the fact that he looked as miserable as she felt. He went to class, ate his meals, went to Quidditch practice, and did his homework. He wasn't living life like he normally did. In fact, it was like he was just there. It was rather eerie; it just wasn't James.

After dinner that evening, Lily sat in the common room and tried her best to complete her homework. It wasn't easy though. Every time anyone came down from the stairs, she looked for James. When he finally did come down, he was clutching his broomstick and heading for Quidditch practice. He stared straight ahead and didn't say hello to anyone. He wasn't even walking with his fellow teammates, which wasn't normal.

Once he disappeared from sight and exited the portrait hole, Lily heard a familiar voice say, "Evans, we need to talk." It was Sirius Black and he did not look happy.

Reluctantly, she followed him out of the common room and away from prying eyes and ears. Actually, she really didn't have a choice; Sirius had grabbed a hold of her wrist and forced her to follow him out of the common room. Lily was very nervous. All she could hear was his words from a week ago echoing in her mind. _"Don't hurt him." … "I swear, Evans, I've never hexed a girl before, but I wouldn't mind starting for you." … "I don't want to see him hurt; you've already hurt him enough."_

Her palms were sweating now; what was Sirius going to do to her? She had promised him that she wouldn't ever hurt James, but had obviously broken that promise. She raked her brain, trying to remember some of the hexes that Sirius had used on Severus Snape. Sirius wouldn't hang her upside down in the hallway, would he?

With his one hand still grasped tightly around her wrist, Sirius suddenly came to a halt and turned to look at her. "What the bloody hell did you do to him?"

"I didn't hurt him on purpose," Lily stammered.

"Evans," he said in a very stern voice. He grabbed onto her other wrist as well, holding one his each hand. It forced her to look at him, forced her to stay and talk to him.

"I'm telling the truth," she exclaimed.

By the tightening of his grasp, she could tell that he didn't buy a single word she said. "What did you do?" he demanded.

"You're hurting me," she squeaked.

His hard, dark brown eyes looked directly into her emerald ones. He paused for a moment before releasing her from his grip. His body stature softened and once again he asked, "What happened?"

She sighed before explaining everything to Sirius. She started from the very beginning and told her story once again, this time adding the parts about being caught, Camilla's outburst, and James's refusal to accept her apology.

"You really like him, don't you," Sirius said, it was more of a statement than a question.

"Yeah," she replied, nodding her head. "But I don't know what to do now. He won't talk to me. He wants to pretend it never happened."

"He still likes you," Sirius reassured her.

"How do you know?"

"I've known James since the first day of first year, I know him. I live with him both at school and during the summer, trust me, I know him," Sirius replied. "In the past seven years, I've never seen him mope around this much. He's not over you. He's been in love with you for the past two years, he didn't just stop liking you over night."

"But he won't even listen to me," Lily said, her eyes pleading with him.

"You have to make him listen," he informed her.

"And how do I go about doing that?" she asked.

"Be creative," he replied. "You'll think of something."

"You're his best friend, can't you give me a hand?"

He shook his head, grinned and replied, "I already gave you hand, I didn't hex you for hurting him."

"Sirius," she whined.

He winked at her before saying, "You can't give up after the first try. Look at James, he must've asked you out a hundred times before you finally gave in, but you eventually did."

She sighed after Sirius left; she had to make James listen to her. Just how was she supposed to do that? That was quite possibly the worst piece of advice that Sirius Black could have ever given anyone in the history of advice giving.

"Make him listen," she mumbled to herself. How? Why couldn't Sirius have been a little more explicit with his directions? She would have preferred a hex and useful advice to this stupid suggestion.

Knowing that she needed to start somewhere, Lily ran back to her dormitory, grabbed her cloak, and headed for the Quidditch Pitch. He couldn't ignore her then, he just couldn't. It was too long of a walk back for him not to notice her.

Once there, she grabbed a spot in the bleachers and watched as the Gryffindor team sped around the field. It was easy to spot James; he was the only member of the team with black hair. She watched him pass the quaffle to another teammate and then swoop down low to avoid a bludger. He was a great flyer, which of course she already knew from watching him play on the team since second year.

Her mind began to drift back to earlier that year. It was weird because she knew that when she first found out that James was Head Boy, she had been very disturbed by Dumbledore's decision. Now though, she couldn't picture a reason as to why James shouldn't be Head Boy. She was now seeing exactly what Dumbledore had seen. James was loyal, smart, brave, and genuine. She now saw that being responsible isn't the most important quality in being a Head student, it's just an added bonus.

Part of her wondered if their Headmaster had foreseen her becoming more relaxed with James around. She wondered if he had done that on purpose, match Lily and James together. They were a great team, always keeping each other in balance. Without James, Lily was just an ordinary girl, nothing special. And without Lily, James could easily be in detention every night from setting off too many dungbombs in the corridors.

She stayed outside in the cold for another hour, watching James fly around the field. She still didn't know if he realized that she was there or not. He was flying just as well as he normally did, which suggested he hadn't seen her. However, it was quite difficult not to notice anyone watching a practice, which made her believe he had seen her, but didn't care.

Once practice was over and James began to collect the Quidditch balls from his fellow teammates, Lily ran from her spot in the stands down to the field. "James," she said once she approached him.

"What do you want?" he asked, sounding rather irritated.

"I'm sorry, James, I really sorry," she exclaimed.

"I told you to leave me alone," he snapped.

"Please, James," she begged.

"Leave me alone," he repeated. "I don't want to talk to you right now."

"I know you're mad, but please just hear me out," Lily said, chasing him around the field as he carried the quidditch balls to the locker room.

He didn't say anything.

"James, remember when we made snow angels?" she asked, trying another approach. "It was just you and me out here, in this very spot… I miss that, don't you?"

"They're gone now," he snapped, pointing to the ground.

"James, please just listen to me, please."

"No," he hoarsely whispered. "Just leave me alone."

"I'm sorry," she slowly repeated once more before leaving the field. She felt hopeless and abandoned. Fixing her biggest mistake and trying to get James to talk to her again seemed like an impossible task. How was she ever going to fix this?

She didn't go to dinner that night, instead she hid out in her room. It wasn't easy though. Camilla came up to gather her books and shot Lily a nasty glare. She didn't speak to her at all and it was quite apparent that she planned on spending the least amount of time humanly possible in the room. Not that Lily wanted Camilla there, she was still so angry at her.

Lily tried to get some of her own work done, but found it quite difficult. Her mind kept on drifting back to James. She smiled as she recalled the look of surprise on his face when she stuck her fingers in the frosting and smeared it across his face. Merlin that was fun and she missed it dearly.

…

The next day, Lily sat in Charms class and zoned out as Flitwick lectured to the class. She sat in the back, instead of her usual spot in the very front. Lily thought that it wouldn't draw attention to her, which is didn't. However, she did not count on the fact that she was two rows behind James.

All she could concentrate on was the back of James's head. She wanted nothing more than to run her fingers through his messy hair. She closed her eyes, remembering the last time they kissed. It was only three days ago, but it felt like a lifetime. Lily knew she shouldn't feel that way, it wasn't normal. But still, she wondered if she would have kissed him differently if she had known they were about to end their secret relationship.

Would she have been more passionate? Could she have been more passionate? She recalled that the kiss was very hot and steamy, one that made her heart work overtime just thinking about it. Or would she have been more tender with her kiss? Was the sweet, simplicity of one last kiss the kiss that she wished she could remember?

She needed to stop thinking like this. It wasn't as if James was dead or anything. He was still here, sitting two rows in front of her. She just needed to find a way to make him listen to her, then all would be right in the world again. Then she wouldn't need to force herself to remember her last kiss with James because there would always be another one on the way.

Suddenly thinking of a way to entice James to talk with her, Lily grabbed a piece of parchment from her book bag and scribbled a note to him, _"James, please forgive me." _She tapped her wand to the paper and it disappeared from her sight.

Lily watched James as the note appeared in front of him. He straightened his body posture and his eyes scanned the paper. James didn't look back at her though; he didn't even look around the room wondering where she was. Instead, he pushed the parchment to the side of his desk.

He began to write something as well, which made Lily's heart swell. However, after several minutes went by without receiving a response, she realized that James was simply copying notes down.

She tried again; she needed him to forgive her. _"James, please forgive me. I miss you."_

Once again, she watched James's expression as the notes appeared on top of his desk. His reaction was exactly the same and he merely placed the second note on top of the first.

Lily tried again. _"James, please, I'm begging you. Please at least hear me out. Please meet me after class, just to talk. I need to explain what happened. Please, James."_

Her heart sank once more. James didn't send a note in reply; he merely continued to stack the note on top of the other two. Lily tried several more times, but he never even read what she had to say.

With only five minutes left before class was dismissed, Lily decided to try one final time. _"James, I know you're mad at me and I really don't blame you. If I were you, I'd be pissed at me as well. We both know I messed up and trust me, there's nothing I wouldn't do to turn back time. You need to know that I miss you and I never meant to hurt you. I'm sorry James, I truly am very sorry. I wish there was something I could do to prove this to you, anything at all. I miss you." _

One minute before class was over, Lily finally got her response from James. Mirroring Lily's own action from years previous, James shredded each piece of parchment and sent their remains back to her. Damn it! Why had she been so cruel to him in the past? She knew that he had gotten this idea from her.

It was odd how easily their roles were reversed. Just one year ago, she was in James's position, ignoring everything he sent her way. A year ago, she wanted him to leave her alone. A year ago, he was as persistent as always, willing her to give him a chance. And now here she was, begging him to forgive her, begging for just one more chance.

…

The following evening, Lily felt more cheerful than she had since James refused to forgive her. In fact, she was down right giddy. Why? Well, she had rounds with James that evening. There was no way for him to escape her now. He would be forced to listen to her. And after hearing the truth, how could he possibly not forgive her?

Maybe this was what Sirius had meant by "make him listen" and "don't give up." Maybe he knew that during rounds, James would be forced to listen to Lily.

She could clearly picture it now; she and James, walking hand in hand. Yes, it was a beautiful image. It was exactly what she needed. She could clearly picture herself laying her head against his chest as they lazily walked around the castle. Oh, this was going to be good, no, scratch that, it was going to be great.

She was finally going to be given her chance to make things right. She was finally going to make James listen to her every word. Finally, she was going to have the man that haunted her dreams back in her life again. Finally, all would be right in her world again.

As the time drew nearer, Lily cautiously glanced around the common room. There was no sign of James, at least not yet. She came to the conclusion that he must be up in his room, waiting until the last possible moment to come down to meet her. He still had twenty minutes after all; there was no need for him to come down to the common room early.

However, as the clock continued to tick away, James was still not present. With only one minute to spare, Lily began to get nervous. Where was he? He didn't leave without her, did he? He wouldn't dare leave without her, would he? It was against Dumbledore's rules. Then again, James was always breaking rules so it wouldn't entirely surprise her.

He wouldn't though, right? Sirius had promised that James still cared about her. He wouldn't just leave her to do rounds all alone, would he? If he truly cared about her, he wouldn't. Dumbledore had said that traveling in pairs was for their own safety; James wouldn't put her life in danger, right? He couldn't possibly be that mad at her.

Then she felt a tap on her shoulder and a sigh of relief came over her body. James must have snuck up behind her, it was the only explanation. She was just so glad that he was here with her now. She was finally going to be given the opportunity to make things right.

However, as she turned around, the face staring at her was not that of James Potter. Instead, it was a sixth year Gryffindor Prefect named Amy. What did she want? This was quite clearly not the time for whatever it was. Lily was too stressed to deal with Amy right now.

"Ready to go?" Amy cheerfully asked.

"What?"

"Didn't James tell you?" Amy carefully began, "He said he's been feeling sick since Sunday afternoon and asked if I could fill in for him tonight."

Sunday afternoon; that was when they were caught. Sunday afternoon was when everything changed, when her world had been turned upside down.

And now James didn't want to see her. He wasn't even willing to do rounds with her anymore. How was she supposed to make this better when he wouldn't even try? How was she supposed to fix her mistake?

Lily wanted to cry. She just wanted to curl herself up into a ball, climb under her covers, and cry. She had gone from an ultimate high of knowing that James would be with her soon to the ultimate low of seeing that he didn't want to have anything to do with her.

She didn't let her emotions show though. Instead, she carried on with her Head duties and set off for rounds with Amy. Needless to say, it was the shortest time it had ever taken for her to complete rounds. And when they were over, Lily ran back up to her dormitory and finally allowed the tears to flow from her eyes. She knew that Camilla was in the room too, but didn't care. She didn't care if the whole world heard her cry, she couldn't hold it in any longer.

...

**Author's Note 2: **Thanks for reading, I hope you all liked the chapter. I hope it was exciting enough, held your attention, and didn't feel too repetitive. I'll admit, it's not one of my favorite chapters, but it was needed. Anyways, please review and tell me what you think! Who knows, with enough reviews, I may even post the next chapter tomorrow!


	18. The Real Confessions of the Head Girl

**Disclaimer: **I don't own HP & Co.

**Author's Note: **Thanks so much to TaylorxxSue, HPfan87, me, Princess Sophie Potter, Frecklednproud, siriusforeva, opungo, carrymeaway, frizzyfro12, HarryGinny4Evr, snaplappl21, RachelElizabeth, bananaslugg, anonymous992, Blue-Eyed Chica, B, marauderette92, lmurph2592, Expectance, Katie, miss larien, Laila, NJ MacReiley the Helpless Romantic, BlAcKdAuGhTeR, pippapear, tasha27, CrazzyD', mrsjamessiriuspotter, lilyfan06, holabitches100, cheekychick, and callie258 for reviewing!

...

After a week, Lily began to feel more and more hopeless. How was she ever going to make this better? She had tried countless times to make James listen to her, but each failed worse than the previous. Lily had confronted him in the hallway, but he backed away from her and found an alternate way to get to class. Next, she tried to sit down across from him at dinner, but he simply got up and walked away.

During Potions class, Lily sat down next to him. She hoped that maybe, just maybe he would give her another chance. Maybe he would even say something to her, anything at all. At that point in time, she would have been pleased with a "Can you pass the armadillo bile?" But no, she got nothing. James merely sat there and pretended that she didn't even exist.

Lily sat in her bed and wondered what she could do next. She came to the conclusion that there was nothing left to do. She'd done it all. She'd done everything and anything that she could possibly think of. James refused to budge though. Only time would tell if he would ever forgive her.

Her heart sank. It was noon on a Monday afternoon and all she wanted to do was curl up under her covers. She couldn't though; she still had classes to attend. Lily sighed and stared up at the ceiling. She couldn't believe it was only Monday; she wanted it to be Friday again, then she really could stay in bed all weekend. But no, it was a miserable Monday.

She heard the door creak open and saw Camilla come in. Great, Lily thought, just great. Lily stilled hadn't spoken to Camilla since that night a week ago. They, similar to her and James, were merely coexisting in the world. Neither of them spoke to each other and neither of them even acknowledged the other's presence.

Then the unexpected happened though. Camilla did not bypass Lily's bed and head straight for her own. Instead she approached Lily and stood awkwardly by its side. "Lily," she cautiously said.

"What?" Lily snapped. She was not in the mood to deal with Camilla right now, not when James still refused to speak with her.

"I, I'm sorry," she blurted out. "I really am."

Lily stared at Camilla for a moment, observing her. She looked frightened, although of exactly what, Lily wasn't sure. It could have been nervousness for apologizing, the fear of Lily not accepting her apologies, or even because of the cold look that Lily shot at her.

"I, I just didn't want to believe it," Camilla continued on. "I thought you were on my side, against him. And even though you told me over and over that you started to like him, I just couldn't see it actually being true. All that flashed through my mind was you rejecting him over and over again, saying that there was nothing anyone could say to make you even give him the time of day… I just didn't believe that you would ever willingly be with Potter, er, James… And well, obviously I was wrong. Lily, I'm so sorry."

She continued to harshly stare at Camilla. Did she really expect Lily to accept her apology that easily? She had put Lily through so much pain and sorrow when she yelled at James. How could Lily even consider being friends with her again? She wouldn't, she couldn't do it yet. She was still too angry.

"Lily, you're my best friend, I would never intentionally hurt you, you know that. If I could take it back, I would," Camilla added. "I just hate fighting with you."

Lily continued to stare at her in silence.

"Lily, please forgive me," Camilla slowly said. "I miss you."

Lily stared at her and let the words echo through her mind. Yes, Camilla had been her best friend, but a real best friend would never betray her like that. And yes, maybe Camilla did miss her, and maybe a part of Lily missed Camilla too, but was it enough? How could it be enough? Camilla had ruined everything that James had given to Lily.

And yet, her words sounded so familiar. Lily instantly knew why; she had something quite similar to James one week ago. The words Camilla used were hers. They were both fighting for something, something they could only hope wasn't completely ruined.

Lily looked straight into Camilla's ocean blue eyes. They weren't cold or hard. In fact, they were watery. They were the same eyes that Lily had looked at James with. They were the eyes of sorrow, of sadness, of pleading forgiveness, and of second chances.

How did she expect James to forgive her, if she couldn't forgive the one person who had been there for the past seven years? How could she beg for forgiveness from James, but not even allow Camilla one more chance?

The answer was that she couldn't. She couldn't expect that double standard. It wasn't fair, not to James, not Camilla, and not to herself.

"Okay," Lily slowly said.

"Okay?" Camilla repeated.

"You messed up," Lily stated. "But one mistake isn't worth it. I'm still mad and I don't know how long it will be until I can fully forgive what you did, but I'll try."

"Thank you," Camilla whispered.

Lily couldn't help but think the very same thing, thank you. She had to believe that people could still be forgiven. She had to hang onto that last bit of hope. She had to believe that she and James still stood a chance.

"Have you talked to him?" Camilla hesitantly asked.

"He won't listen to me," Lily answered.

"You need to make him listen," Camilla stated, she paused before adding, "I don't like Potter, I may never like him, but Lily, I know you do. And I don't want to see you hurt anymore. You need to make him listen to you."

What was this? Both Camilla and Sirius had given her the same exact advice: make him listen. How was she supposed to do that? Didn't either of them realize that although their words sounded good, in reality, they were quite improbable?

"I've tried everything," Lily said. "He won't listen."

"Then you haven't tried everything," Camilla replied, giving her a weak smile. "You need to make sure he knows it's not a secret anymore. He needs to know that you like him."

"I've told him already," Lily stated. "He doesn't want to hear it."

"Tell him in a way that he will listen," Camilla instructed.

Tell him in a way that he will listen. Lily repeated Camilla's words over and over in her mind. She had already recounted her story to him, but that hadn't worked. That wasn't good enough. James didn't want to hear what happened, he had experienced what happened. He didn't want to hear her sad excuses either; he was sick of excuses.

No, there had to be another way. There had to be another way to tell him she was sorry. She spent their entire Potions class mulling it over. She was lucky that it wasn't a difficult potion to brew; it allowed her to lose herself in her mind.

How could she express her apologies? She considered sneaking up to his room and leaving a note, but realized that it would do no good. James probably wouldn't read it; he would just toss it in the fire or send it back her way. Maybe she could make a huge banner and hang it in the common room, one which read, "James, I'm sorry." It would certainly grab his attention, but was it good enough?

After thinking of countless ways to express her sincerest apologies, each one worse than the other, Camilla's words reappeared. Tell him in a way that he will listen. Tell him that she's sorry in a way that he will listen. No, just tell him in a way that he will listen. There was a difference. James didn't want to hear her apologies; he wanted to hear something else, something that would show she wasn't just in it for the secrecy. He wanted to hear something that would prove it all.

Her hammered for the rest of class and she began counting down the minutes until class would over. She needed to talk to him, she needed to tell him the truth. Not the truth she had been saying all along, she needed him to know the truth about how she felt about him.

The sound of the bell signaled that class was finally over. Lily jumped from her seat and threw her books into her bag. She searched the classroom for James, but he had already disappeared.

Lily ran from the classroom, squirming past her fellow students. She ran the familiar path back up to Gryffindor, scanning her eyes through the crowd. She needed to see him.

Finally, she spotted him on the staircase, with his fellow Marauders. He was halfway up in, on the small landing. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, Lily yelled, "James, wait! I need to tell you something."

He glanced over his shoulder at her and shook his head. He didn't want to hear it.

Lily spoke anyway, ignoring the fact that he walked away from her. "You can go through life being ordinary," she yelled, but stopped at what she saw.

Sirius had intentionally walked directly in front of James, blocking him from continuing up the stairs. He had his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"What the bloody hell are you doing?" James muttered to Sirius.

"Listen to her," Sirius demanded.

"What?"

"I know," Sirius began. "I know about you and Evans… I saw you one night, and then she told me everything… You're my best mate, James, and I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think it was good for you. But I've seen you with and without her, and I've never see you more miserable now that she's gone. But she's here now and I'm begging you to just listen to what she has to say."

With that said, he put his hands on James's shoulders and turned him around to face Lily. His kept his hands there, as if he wanted to make sure that James wouldn't try and run for it. Then Sirius winked at Lily, signaling for her to continue.

Lily, feeling very grateful, suddenly mustered up all her courage and took a deep breath. She knew that everyone nearby had stopped dead in their tracks and listened in to what she had to say. However, Lily didn't care. In her mind, the only two people in the corridor were her and James.

From her position on the ground, Lily looked up the staircase at James. She could feel her body tremble; she had never been so nervous in her life. Her heart was beating fast, faster than ever before.

"Someone once told me that you can go through life abiding all the rules and you'll live an ordinary life," Lily began. "But, if for just a moment, you take a risk and break those rules, you might just find yourself face to face with the best thing that could have ever happened to you."

James took two slow steps down the staircase, his eyes never leaving Lily's.

"I don't want everyone else to influence my life. I don't want my reputation telling me what to do… I don't want to strive for perfection."

He took another step down, still eying her.

"I don't want to be ordinary, James."

He took another step.

"I want to take a chance."

Still, he took another step. He was now on ground level with her; face to face.

He was so close that she was whispering now. "I want to risk it all, James. I don't care what anyone has to say about it. I don't care if I'm not perfect anymore. All I care about it being face to face with the one person that might just be the best thing that has ever happened to me."

His lips were on hers and his arms wrapped around her waist. Lily thought for a moment that she might collapse into him; the only thing holding her up was knowing that their lips had finally touched again.

She brought her arms up around his neck, never wanting to break apart. The kiss wasn't full of passionate, fiery lust. Instead, it was tender and caring. It was exactly the kiss that she had missed the most. It was the kiss that told her everything was going to be okay. It was the kiss that she had spent the past week dreaming about.

Once they broke apart, Lily look up into James's smiling face and whispered her last and final confession, only loud enough for him to hear. "I love you."

...

_The End_

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**Author's Note 2: **Thanks so much to anyone who has ever read and reviewed this story, it means so much to me! I hope you all enjoyed the final chapter, I had fun writing it! And for the final time, I ask that you please review! Until next time... -Loves to dance


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